A shape is the form of an object or its external boundary, outline, or external surface, as opposed to other properties such as color, texture or material type. The form of an object, its outer surface or boundary is known as shapes.
All the objects around us has a shape, for example, bed, table, sun, buildings, etc. These shapes can be classified as two-dimensional and three-dimensional. Two-dimensional shapes such as square, rectangle, triangle, etc. And the examples of three-dimensional are cylinder, rectangular prism, sphere. These shapes can be further into real objects such as buildings, electricity pole, pot, toys,etc.
Shapes Around us:
Different types of shapes:
Shapes can further be classified into open and closed shapes.
| Open Shapes | Closed Shapes |
Closed geometric shapes are classified as two-dimensional and three-dimensional.
| 2-D Dimensional Shape | 3-D Dimensional Shape |
Here’s a list of 2-D or two-dimensional shapes with their names and pictures:
| Name of the shape : | Picture of the shape : |
| Decagon |  |
| Nonagon |  |
| Octagon |  |
| Heptagon |  |
| Hexagon |  |
| Pentagon |  |
| Kite |  |
| Trapezium |  |
| Rhombus |  |
| Parallelogram |  |
| Rectangle |  |
| Square |  |
| Triangle |  |
| Oval |  |
| Semi – circle |  |
| Circle |  |
Here’s a list of 3-D or three-dimensional shapes with their names and pictures:
| Three-Dimensional Geometric Shapes |
| Name of the shape : | Picture of the shape : |
| Sphere |  |
| Cube |  |
| Cuboid or Rectangular Prism |  |
| Cone |  |
| Cylinder |  |
Defining and non-defining attributes of shape
Defining attributes of shape have direct impact on the shape of an object. Attributes such as non-parallel or parallel, straight or curved, number of sides, faces of a shape, open or closed shape. If there is any change in these distributes will change the shape of an object.
Non-defining attributes such as color, overall orientation, and the size of the object don’t affect the shape of an object.
How to make students familiar with shapes?
Instead of showing the shapes to the children, ask them to show you or tell you objects that have the respective shapes. This is called “show me” game. Or you can provide them with playdough, matchsticks to make different shapes. So it was all about Shapes We hope you like it…
Classification of simple shapes
Some simple shapes can be put into broad categories . For instance, polygons are classified according to their number of edges as triangles, quadrilaterals, pentagons, etc. Each of these is divided into smaller categories; triangles can be equilateral, isosceles, obtuse, acute, scalene, etc. while quadrilaterals can be rectangles, rhombi, trapezoids, squares, etc.
Other common shapes are points, lines, planes, and conic sections such as ellipses, circles, and parabolas.