Activity:
Practice Geometry with Shape Riddles!
This shape guessing game is a wonderful way to help build your child’s geometry vocabulary. The best part about the game? It can be played just about anywhere. It'll definitely come in handy during those long car trips, and it's great for kids at all levels of geometry, from those just beginning to learn their shapes to those that are mastering their shape knowledge.
Click to find similar content by grade.
What You Need:
- Nothing—just the names and descriptions of a few geometric shapes
What You Do:
- Tell your child that you’re going to play a riddle game called “What Shape am I?” You will start by providing a certain number of clues about a geometric shape. Decide with your child how many clues you want to provide (3–4 is a good start). Try to incorporate as many geometric terms as you can for your clues. For example, if you’ve picked a square, you might give your child clues like:
- I am a quadrilateral
- All my sides are equal in length
- I have four right angles
- What shape am I?
- Based on your clues your child will guess the geometric shape. Then, your child can think of a different shape and come up with clues of his or her own. For a challenge, keep increasing the number of clues each player needs to provide. Here’s another example with 5 clues:
- I am a polygon
- I am a quadrilateral
- I only have one pair of parallel sides
- I have two acute angles
- I have two obtuse angles
- What shape am I? (A trapezoid)
- Continue playing until your child has a good grasp of geometric terms. Who knows, with a little practice she might even be able to stump you!
