Sides, corners, faces and edges: shape attribute sheets for K–3

A kindergartner can name a triangle from across the room and still not know it has three sides. Ask her to count them and she looks at you as if it were a trick question. Counting sides and corners is the first time a shape becomes a thing with properties, not just a picture with a name.

What the sheet looks like

The shape attributes generator prints one of eight activities: count the sides and corners of flat shapes, count the faces, edges and vertices of solids, a 2D-or-3D cut and sort, name the shape from a word bank, match shape to name, color polygons by their number of sides, match 3D solids to everyday objects, or classify quadrilaterals. The shape set is 2D basic (circle, square, triangle, rectangle, oval, diamond), 2D polygons, which adds pentagon, hexagon, octagon, trapezoid and parallelogram, 3D solids, or mixed.

The counting and naming pages take 6, 8 or 12 problems; the sort, match, color and classify pages are fixed layouts. The answer key prints on a second sheet.

Why it works

• Counting sides is a different act from recognizing a shape. Kids who skip it later cannot tell a hexagon from an octagon because both just look pointy.
• Faces, edges and vertices on a drawing is hard, and that is fine. The sheet is where a child learns that the hidden back faces count too.
• The quadrilateral page asks for ticks against properties, which is the first step toward the fact that a square is also a rectangle.

Who it suits

Kindergarten through third grade. Use 2D basic and the match pages for a five-year-old, the color-by-sides page for first grade, and the faces-edges-vertices and classify quadrilaterals pages for third. If a child cannot yet draw the shapes, the shape tracing sheets come first; once the 3D page clicks, the fold-up shape nets let them count faces on a real cube.

Keep a real box and a can on the table for the 3D page. Counting edges on paper is much easier after running a finger along twelve real ones.