2D Shapes: Circle the Name

Six numbered cards fill this kindergarten page, two across and three down. Each card holds one flat shape drawn as a teal outline inside a white circle, and beside it three name chips to choose from: circle, square, triangle or rectangle. The child names the shape and circles its word. The sheet shown runs a long, thin triangle lying almost on its side, a plain circle, a square tilted a few degrees, a rectangle turned on a slant, a square standing on one corner, and a tall narrow triangle. Only one of the six sits the way shapes usually sit in a picture book.

That is the point of the page, and the instruction says so out loud: even the turned and skinny ones. Young children learn shape names from a small set of perfect examples, a triangle with a flat base and a square with its sides straight up and down, and then refuse to call a square on its corner a square. Every card here breaks one of those habits, so the name has to come from the sides and corners rather than from the pose. Card five is the one to talk about: most children will want to call it a diamond, and that word is not offered.

One sheet, six shapes, six circles. This is the base page of the 2D shapes family and the one that owns the plain naming task; the five faces built on it ask the child to reject shapes that are not the real thing, find shapes in everyday objects, write the names, solve riddles, or draw shapes on dot paper. Each card has exactly one right chip, so the page checks quickly. If card five causes an argument, let it: turning the sheet until the square sits flat settles it in a second.