Lion Shapes Match for Preschoolers

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This FREE Lion Shapes Match is a perfect hands-on activity for preschoolers to practice recognizing and naming their shapes. It is also a great addition to your Zoo Animals theme.

This pack includes six pages, three mats with four shapes each, and the correspondent lion’s head shape cards, which include the shapes circle, heart, hexagon, octagon, oval, parallelogram, pentagon, rectangle, rhombus, square, trapezoid, triangle. You can get it at the end of this post.

Getting the Lion Shapes Match Activity Ready

To prepare this activity, you only need a handful of materials, which are:

Print the Lion Shaped mats and lion-head-shaped cards using white cardstock. Cut out the lion-head-shaped cards and laminate everything to make them last longer. It would be a good idea to print several sets and place the mats and cut-out lion-head shapes in different centers, inviting the children to match the lion shapes.

As your preschoolers match the shapes, you can ask questions like:

Can you find the circle?
What shape is this?
How many sides a triangle has?
Do you see a square somewhere else in the classroom?
Do you know any shape that looks like a clock?
Is this a pentagon or an octagon?

Asking all these questions and encouraging them to find the answers will help the children focus on recognizing the shapes, how many sides each one has, and how to identify the same shapes in objects around them. This will reinforce the children’s understanding, strengthen their shape knowledge, and work on their concentration, one-to-one correspondence, visual discrimination, and fine motor skills.

Also, these questions will help you access their knowledge and identify what you need to help them learn.

Lion Shapes Match activity can be used in many ways, such as:

Small group activity.
Math center option.
Writing center option.
Take home game.
Quiet area option.

Extension Activities

To extend the activity, you can:

Have the children copy the shapes on a white sheet of paper.
Match each shape with a plastic shape.
Trace the shapes with dry-erase markers.
Find the shapes they are matching in objects around the classroom.
Spell the names of the shapes using magnetic, wooden, or foam letters.
Use the lion’s head shapes to create a memory or folder game.

If you like to offer your preschoolers different options like I do, you can also provide other related activities like the ones below. They are all free.

Storybooks About Shapes

You must always include storybooks in everything you do. In this case, you can add books about zoo animals and shapes. Below are some you can use. You can find them at your local library, in your used bookstore, and on Amazon, following my affiliate links embedded in the titles.

Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stone Walsh tells how three clever mice use shapes to find a funny way to trick a sneaky cat.

Shapes by Wonder House Books is a beautiful picture book that introduces children to different shapes. It is filled with well-researched words and eye-catching images, helping them to associate words with pictures and build a perfect vocabulary.

Snippets: A Story About Paper Shapes by Diane Elber is a story that reveals the power of kindness and the beauty of being unique. And it does so through the journey of two different groups of shapes (the polygons and irregular polygons).

Big Box of Shapes by Wiley Blevins tells how Lulu and Max use their imaginations to use shapes found in a box to take in new and exciting ways.

Tangled: A Story About Shapes by Anne Miranda is a charming story that makes learning the names of sixteen shapes a leisurely day in the park.

Pin It for Later

If you are in a rush and don’t have time to read the post and download the printable but want to save it, pin it to one of your Pinterest boards to have it available when needed.

I hope you enjoy this activity, which will help your preschoolers learn or review their shapes. Don’t forget to grab your FREE Lion Shapes Match printable by clicking on the link below.

Be happy, safe, and creative. I wish you well.

Love,

P.D. Please let me know if any of these ideas worked for you or if you think I need to add or replace something. Also, if you have different ideas and want to share them, I would love to post them.