I always love when I find one printable material that can be used in several different ways, so I created this simple free printable of shape cards and I’m going to show you 7 different Montessori-inspired ways to use them!
Teaching the shape names using a 3 Period Lesson
This free printable file includes cards for circle, square, triangle, rectangle, heart, star, pentagon, hexagon, and octagon. Start with just a few of them at a time and name each one. After those ones are mastered, add a few more until your child has learned them all. You can learn more about how to present a 3 period lesson in this blog post:
Matching Cards
Lay out one of each shape, then find the matching card and put them together! This helps to focus visual discrimination, an important pre-reading skill.
Scavenger Hunt
Take your matching cards lesson and expand it to include the whole classroom! Hang up one of each shape on the walls around your room, then give your child a basket with the matching shapes in it to carry around until he finds each match. I like to use velcro dots with this so the child can attach the cards to their match on the wall. You can learn more about this type of lesson here:
Memory
Older kids might like to play a game of Memory with these cards! Mix them up and place them all upside down, then take turns flipping two at a time to see if you can find the matches by memory.
Bring Me Game
The Bring Me Game is typically used with the golden beads, but it could easily be adapted for matching cards! Put one set of shape cards on a work rug on the other side of the room. Then tell your child which shape to bring to the work space you are sitting at.
Cutting Practice
Cut out each shape card and allow your child to cut along the outer lines of each shape for some simple cutting practice! Start with simple shapes like the square and triangle.
Pin-Pushing
Print the cards on construction paper or cardstock and pair with a jumbo pushpin, then show your child how to put tiny holes all along the perimeter of the shapes until they pop right out! You can learn more about this lesson here:
The Shape Matching Cards are available as a free printable for my email subscribers only! To gain access to this and all of my other subscriber-only freebies, get on my email list HERE and I’ll send the link and password right over!
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