Teach Your Child About Shapes with These Free Resources
Please enjoy these free resources to teach your child about shapes. Knowing the names of shapes, colors, and numbers will give children the vocabulary they need to describe and interact with the world around them. The more exposure children get to the to these concepts at a young age, the easier it will be to commit them to their long term memory and help them learn how to read.
Shapes Flashcards (4 per page)
About These Flashcards
- Print from a Chrome Browser to make sure the margins are correct, and make sure “fit to page” is not selected. You may have problems getting the correct margins if you use the Edge browser.
- Print on card stock and laminate.
Tips and Tricks for Using My Shapes Flashcards
- Wait until your child is fed, in a good mood, and ready for cuddles.
- Once your child is familiar with the shapes, say “What’s shape is this?” pointing to the flashcard. Wait for a few seconds and say the answer if they don’t know it. If your child says the wrong shape, don’t make a big deal about it, just say happily (not disappointed) the name of the shape. If your child doesn’t say the word correctly just say, “That’s right!” and say the name of the shape correctly.
- In addition to using the flashcards in the traditional sense, you could also put them on the wall or on the refrigerator at eye level. Point to them and encourage your child to interact with them. You could also leave them loose and hand them to your child one at a time or put them on the floor and say, “Let’s say the name of the shapes as we step on them.”
- Ask your child what color the shapes are.
- Point out the attributes of the shapes: how many sides, how many corners, straight lines or curvy lines.
Tips and Tricks for Using My Shapes Video
- Start watching when your child is as young as 6-8 months old (or start at any age).
- As your child is introduced to the video, repeat some of the things that are said so they hear your voice along with the video. Say the chant along with the video and comment where appropriate. (“What color is the triangle? How many sides does it have?”)
- Wait until your child is alert and in a good mood. With my children, I found that meal or snack time was often a good time to watch learning videos.
- Stop watching the video when your child loses interest. As children get more familiar with the video, their attention spans will increase, especially if you’re using the flashcards at cuddle time as well.
- Eventually, after watching the video enough times with you, your child will be engaged with it enough to watch it independently. Then maybe you can go take an uninterrupted shower!
For More Information
- For a simple overview for how to teach your child to read, check out my blog: Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps, and for a more in depth look at teaching reading, check out my: Teach Your Child to Read Blog Series.
- Check out my Free Reading Resources page to access all of the flashcards, posters, and video digital downloads you’ll need to teach your child how to read.
Follow These 5 Simple Steps to Teach Your Child How to Read:
I created these resources to help any parent (or teacher) teach their child/children to read in a fun and back to basics kind of way. If you follow these steps and fill learning time with lots of love and cuddles, your child will learn how to read easily and naturally just like my own five children did.
- Language Rich Environment: Use oral language at the child’s level (Get down on the floor and play together!) and help them memorize vocabulary words. (Tell them the names of things!)
- Phonemic Awareness: Teach one sound for each letter of the alphabet. (Start with short vowels and the hard c and g.)
- Phonics: Tap out sounds in three letter words to teach how sounds come together to form words.
- More Complex Phonemic Awareness: Introduce long vowels, digraphs, other vowel sounds, and other consonant sounds.
- Reading Comprehension Strategies: Use quality literature to interact with books and ask questions before, during, and after reading to make sure your child is understanding what you’re reading.
Start young! It’s better to do a little bit over a long period of time rather than try to cram it all in before preschool or kindergarten starts. Read more about how to teach your child to read in my blog: Teach Your Child to Read in 5 Simple Steps.
Teach Your Child to Read Blog Series
For a more in depth look at teaching your child to read, follow my blog series. In this series, I divide learning how to read into nine layers that build off from each other to create strong and confident readers. In each blog, you’ll find additional resources and information that will give you a deep understanding for how children learn how to read.
- #1-Oral Language Development Lays the Foundation for Learning to Read
- #2-How Engage Your Baby or Young Child with Reading
- #3-Learning How to Read Begins with the ABCs
- #4-Memorizing Words Before Sounding Them Out Leads to Reading
- #5-Building Vocabulary with Numbers, Colors, and Shapes
- #6-Teaching Phonics with Three Letter Word Families
- #7-Unlock the Final Stages of Reading with Advanced Phonemic Awareness
- #8-Reading Comprehension Strategies Lead to Independent Readers
- #9-Reinforcing Reading with Writing
