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2D Shapes Geometry Activities

Teaching 2D shapes in 2nd grade is a critical standard and life skill. 2D shapes are found everywhere in the real world. It’s important to help students understand 2D shapes and their differences from 3D shapes. Today, I’m sharing several ways to make your math lessons engaging and hands-on with these 2D shapes geometry activities and 2D shapes crafts for 2nd grade.

2D Shapes Geometry Activities

What Are 2D Shapes?

2D shapes are flat plane figures that are made up of sides and vertices. They are called plane figures because they stay in only one single plane. 2D shapes have only 2 dimensions, length and width. These shapes do not have any depth or thickness, which is what makes them different from 3D shapes.

A few examples of 2D shapes are circles, squares, triangles, rectangles, ovals, rhombuses, pentagons, hexagons, and octagons.

2D Shapes Anchor Chart

When introducing a new mathematical concept, one of my favorite strategies is to create a 2D shapes anchor chart. Creating a whole group 2D shapes anchor chart allows students to understand the concept deeper, see visual aides, and understand the mathematical vocabulary related to the concept.

Geometry 2D Shape Anchor Chart

After creating the whole group 2D shapes anchor chart that goes on display for the entire math unit, you can guide students to create a mini version of the 2D shapes anchor chart to keep in their math journal. This is a great way to help students revisit the information and creates a reference that they can keep in their journal throughout the unit and the year.

Interactive math journals serve as great spiral review as well. Your young learners can flip to the page they need to review any concept throughout the year. This also helps with problem-solving as students know to look in their math journal for help before asking the teacher.

Now that you know more about what 2D shapes are and how to introduce these new shapes to your students, read on for some simple ideas for hands-on learning activities and fun 2D shapes geometry practice.

1. Constructing 2D Shapes

I like to give students a hands-on way to create and work with 2D shapes at the beginning of our 2D shapes unit. One of my favorite ways to do this is to have them construct 2D shapes using popsicle sticks and pom pom balls.

The popsicle sticks represent the sides of the shapes and the pom pom balls are used to identify the vertices in a shape. You can see exactly how to do this with students in my Math Manipulatives and Tools for Teaching Geometry blog post.

Building 2D shapes with popsicle sticks and pom-poms

2. Sorting Polygons

When learning about 2D shapes, it’s important for students to understand what a polygon is. Polygons are flat, 2D plane shapes with straight sides that are closed. This means the sides are all connected and there is no space to “escape.” Polygons can have any number of sides, but they must be straight. If a shape has curved sides, it is not a polygon.

To help students understand which shapes are polygons and not polygons, you can use this polygon pocket chart sorting activity from my Geometry Guided Math Unit.

Polygon vs Not Polygon pocket chart sort

3. Incorporating Real Life 2D Shapes Examples

As I mentioned, 2D shapes are everywhere in the real world. Therefore, it’s important to provide students with opportunities to see shapes in the form of real objects around them. When learning about 2D shapes, you can take your students for a walk around the school or outside to identify the various 2D shapes found.

You can reinforce real life 2D shapes practice in the classroom by incorporating real life objects in your mini lessons, math stations, or independent practice activities. This Roll & Color activity is a fun way for students to familiarize themselves with real-world 2D shapes.

Roll & Color real-life 2D shapes activity

4. Irregular Shapes vs. Regular Shapes

In 2nd grade students learn to identify regular 2D shapes up to a dodecagon, which is a shape with 12 sides and vertices. A regular shape is a shape in which all sides are the same length and all angles are equal.

Oftentimes, shapes can be irregular. This means that the sides are not equal in length and/or the angles are different. While irregular shapes must still have straight sides and be closed, students in 2nd grade must learn to identify the differences in regular and irregular shapes. Using interactive journal activities for determining regular and irregular shapes is a great way to put this into practice.

Regular vs. Irregular Shapes interactive notebook activity

5. Constructing 2D Shapes With Pattern Blocks

Another one of my favorite 2D shapes geometry activities is using pattern blocks to construct 2D shapes. This gives students more exposure to the overall shape and its attributes. As they construct, they also become more familiar with the individual shapes that make up the larger shape.

This Composing Shapes Mat activity from my Geometry Guided Math Unit encourages critical thinking and problem-solving as students must read the shape card and determine how to compose the 2D shape using the smaller shapes in the right quantities.

Composing 2D Shapes Mat with pattern blocks


6. 2D Shapes Writing Activities

A big part of mathematical understanding is being able to explain math concepts and write about them. Whenever you can incorporate writing into your math block, it’s a win-win.

This Emoji Shape Craft is one of my favorite ways to incorporate writing into my 2D shapes lessons.

2D Shapes Emoji Craft

Incorporating writing into math gives students a great opportunity to improve overall writing skills and practice more technical writing techniques, like with this Turkey Shape Craft.

Shape Turkey Writing Craft

Students will be able to use their mathematical vocabulary to write about the concept, show their understanding, and explain their reasoning.

This Reindeer Shape Craft is the perfect way for students to write about 2D shapes and their attributes.

Shape Reindeer Writing Craft

7. Using Technology

Using technology in your 2D shapes geometry lessons is a sure way to keep your students engaged and excited. One way to incorporate technology into your 2D shapes lessons is to use the ChatterPix app to allow your students to share their writing.

This free download can be found in the Apple or GooglePlay stores. It’s super easy to use too! Students simply take a photo of their writing math craft, use their finger to draw a mouth on the photo, and record themselves reading their writing piece. It really makes the writing piece come to life and shows each student’s personality and creativity!

ChatterPix takes your basic writing crafts from this…

Shape Turkey Writing Craft

 …to this.

8. Shape Riddles

Another 2D shapes geometry activity students love is Shape Riddles! Students will read the shape riddle and work together to solve it. Then they’ll find the matching 2D shape card based on the shape’s attributes.

You can even split students into pairs or teams and have a race to see which team can solve the most riddles the fastest.

2D Shape Riddles

I hope you enjoyed this variety of activities for 2nd grade! For more ideas on teaching 2D shapes and geometry, check out my blog post all about Math Manipulatives and Tools for Teaching Geometry.

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2D Shapes Geometry Activities
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