Geometry for Pre-Kindergarten and Primary grade children focuses on some early, foundational skills: recognizing and naming plane figures, and naming their properties. Plane shapes are two dimensional shapes that occur on a flat plane. They include curved shapes, such as ovals and circles, and many sided shapes, called polygons.

No More Baby Talk

Children with disabilities have enough trouble with learning and applying vocabulary, without having to learn and unlearn as their ability to use acquired skills improves.

If Mommy wants to goo-goo gah-gah, there's no reason for a professional to follow their lead. I pair corner and vertex because corner is a descriptive way to talk about vertices, not a mathematical term.

Sort Shapes

The beginning place to begin is by sorting shapes. Avoid using your geometric shapes for sorting colors, because children with poor or limited language may not understand what you are sorting for. You want to name a sort: "We are putting together the shapes that have the same number of sides." "We are sorting the curved shapes and the shapes with straight sides."

Naming Shapes

When you are naming shapes, be sure that your remember that all squares are rectangles, but not all rectangles are squares. Teachers make the mistake of telling children that rectangles are squares that have different length sides. That is FALSE. Squares are rectangles with equal sides. A square is a sub-category, but since it regularly features as a polygon in life and worksheets, students need to be able to name it.

Intermediate students will be naming specific kinds of triangles as well as polygons.

In grades Kindergarten, one and two, children need to be able to name squares, rectangles, triangles, circles and ovals.

Defining Plane Figures

Students need to be able to name at least three specific characteristics of each space:

• Rectangle: A shape with four sides with opposite sides which are equal in length and parallel. A rectangle has 4 right angles at their vertices (corners.)
• Square: A square is a rectangle with 4 equal sides. That means that 1) opposite sides are parallel, 2) all vertices are right angles, 3) opposite sides are equal.
• Triangle: A triangle has three straight sides, three vertices (corners) and all sides meet to form a closed figure.
• Circle: A circle is a closed shape with one curved line. All points in the line are the same distance from the center point.
• Oval: An Oval is a closed shape created by one curved side. One of the axes of the oval is longer than the other.