Farm Theme Shape Activities for Preschoolers

Learning about shapes is an important part of early childhood classrooms. That’s why I like to try to fit shape activities for preschoolers into every preschool theme. That’s why we love these farm theme shape activities for preschoolers to pair with our fall activities.

Be sure to grab your free printable from the end of this post and check out my BEST farm themed activities for preschoolers.

Farm-themed shape activities for preschoolers featuring assorted shape mats with various shapes for hands-on learning.
These shape mats include all the basic shapes for preschool.

Shape Activities for Preschoolers

How do you like to teach shapes in preschool? Do you plan a shapes math unit? Or perhaps a shape of the week? Maybe you teach shapes by using shape lesson plans for preschool?

Whatever you teaching style, you can rest assured these shape mats can be used to reinforce all your best teaching strategies.

Pre K Shape Lesson Plans

Learning shapes helps children identify and organize visual information. Shapes encourage preschoolers to visualize and connect to the world around them. Learning shapes also helps children understand other signs and symbols, such as street signs or icons on a computer app.

These preschool shape lesson plans are perfect for helping you plan engaging and developmentally appropriate lessons and activities for your students without loads of prep and time.

Shapes a Kindergartener Should Know

  • circle
  • square
  • rectangle
  • triangle
  • rhombus
  • pentagon
  • hexagon
  • octagon 

Best Farm Books for Preschoolers

Having the right farm books for preschoolers can take your farm animal learning activities to the next level. Picture books help preschoolers make themes more visual. Here are some of our favorite farm theme books for preschoolers.

Sale
Cows Can Moo! Can You? All About Farms (The Cat in the…
  • Hardcover Book
  • Worth, Bonnie (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
Right This Very Minute: A Table-to-Farm Book About Food…
  • Detlefsen, Lisl H. (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 32 Pages – 05/01/2021 (Publication Date) – Feeding Minds Press (Publisher)
Machines on the Farm (Farm Facts)
  • Amstutz, Lisa J. (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 24 Pages – 12/31/2019 (Publication Date) – Pebble Plus (Publisher)
Tractors Found on the Farm for Children Ages 3-5: An…
  • Groundhog, Wordplay (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 30 Pages – 03/03/2023 (Publication Date) – Independently published (Publisher)
Sale
Mrs. Wishy-Washy’s Farm
  • Cowley, Joy (Author)
  • English (Publication Language)
  • 32 Pages – 06/01/2006 (Publication Date) – Puffin Books (Publisher)

Teaching Shapes to Preschoolers

These questions not only apply to preschoolers, but they will help you teach shapes to toddlers as well.

What age group are these farm-themed shape activities suitable for?

These activities are designed for preschoolers, typically ages 3 to 5, to help with early shape recognition and math skills.

How do these activities help preschoolers with shape recognition?

These fun, hands-on activities incorporate farm themes to teach children how to identify and match different shapes in a playful, engaging way.

How can I make these activities more interactive?

You can add real-life farm items like toy animals or hay to make the activities more sensory and engaging for young learners.

Farm Shape Activities for Preschool

These mats carry a farm preschool theme while also teaching shapes and they work on fine motor skills, too!

They can be used for pre-k shape activities and can be added to your shape lesson plans for kindergarten. Add them to your farm centers.

What’s Included

This printable set of farm shape activities includes 10 different shape mats! These shapes are included as part of the free shape set:

  • square
  • triangle
  • circle
  • oval
  • star
  • heart
  • pentagon
  • hexagon
  • trapezoid
  • parallelogram

Additional Materials

We used game pieces for our counting manipulative. I’ve been using these more and more because of how preschoolers have to use their pincer grasp to move the pieces. Here are the exact game pieces I used.

Shape activities for preschoolers using colorful shape mats for interactive learning and shape recognition.
Be sure to grab these printable shapes for preschoolers at the end of this post.

How to Use Farm Shape Mats

Have your preschooler select a shape mat and begin by naming the shape. Shape identification is just one part of learning shapes. Preschoolers also need practice in creating them! Have your preschooler use small manipulatives to create the shape on the mat.

Triangle shape mat used in shape activities for preschoolers to promote shape recognition and hands-on learning.
Shape formation is an important skill for preschoolers.

These mats feature a farm theme, which makes them a nice addition to other farm activities for preschoolers. I keep them in a scrapbook box with my other preschool farm theme printables.

To use these with your farm theme, invite your preschoolers to name the farm animals on each mat. Encourage your preschoolers to talk about what they know of the farm animals, or relate them to picture books they have heard about farms.

Since these mats focus primarily on farm animals and not other farm icons like barns, tractors and silos, these can be used with any farm animal activity, and bonus points if you encourage your preschoolers to make farm animal sounds.

Shape Manipulatives for Preschoolers

Using shape manipulatives and hands-on math materials helps solidify shape recognition and spatial awareness through play and fun. We have picked some of our favorite shape manipulatives for preschoolers!

Sale
Learning Resources Dive into Shapes! A Sea and Build…
  • 3D SHAPES Geometric shape building set
Wooden Geoboard with Rubber Bands Graphical Math…
  • Geometrical Board: This wooden geoboard comes with 64pcs of nails, 24 pattern cards (including 5…
hand2mind Foam Attribute Blocks Student Kit, Geometry…
  • ATTRIBUTE BLOCK GEOMETRY SET: Our hand2mind attribute shapes make for fun sorting and easy clean up.
Learning Resources View-Thru Geometric Solids -…
  • Transparent 3-D shapes fashioned in bright, bold colors
edxeducation Plastic Pattern Blocks – Set of 250 -…
  • A BULK 250-PIECE SET — This massive set of standard pattern blocks includes 25 yellow hexagons, 25…
Deekin 70 Pcs Wood Geometric Solids, Mini 3D Shapes for…
  • Rich and Colorful: there are 70 pieces of geometric shapes in 5 packages, which are designed in 5…
close up of triangle shape mat | shape activities for preschoolers
Preschoolers get to practice fine motor skills while learning about shapes.

Shape Activities for Preschoolers

Activities to teach shapes to preschoolers aren’t the only thing these mats are good for! Here are more activities that also teach different preschool math skills.

Additional Ways to Use the Mats

Add a Die

One fun activity is to add a die and have your preschooler roll and then count the number of manipulatives to add to the shape. You can even turn it into a collaborative game between two students by having them take turns. Assign each student their own color to make it easier for them to keep track of how many pieces they have added during their turn.

heart shape mat | farm theme| shape activities for preschoolers
Preschoolers can practice one to one correspondence by adding a die.

Practice Pattern Skills

Another activity is to use these mats to practice patterns. Have your preschooler choose two colors and build the shape by creating a pattern with the manipulative as they go. More advanced preschoolers can make ABC or AABB patterns, too!

haxagon shape mat | shape activities for preschoolers |
Can you spot the mistake(s) in this preschooler’s pattern?

Add Some Writing Tools

Preschoolers can also practice writing skills by using traditional writing tools with these mats. They can color in the circles with crayons or attempt to draw the shape line through each of the circles. Add some playdough and have your preschooler roll a ball for each circle on the mat.

You can even make it into an art project by having your preschooler stamp the circles!

Shapes Games for Preschoolers

Games are such an easy trick to learning or practicing academic skills! These shape games for preschoolers are a breeze to put together and fun for the fall season.

fam theme shape activities for preschoolers shape mats
Get your shape mats below.

Preschool Shape Activities and Crafts

Looking for shapes crafts of activities? We’ve got you covered with these fun and interactive shape ideas!

Get Your Shape Mats Here

Think your preschoolers will love these farm themed shape activities? I bet they will! Grab your free printable by filling out the form below and the pdf will arrive in your email shortly.