Eight shape cards, a magnifying glass and the whole house. Take one card, hunt for that shape, and suddenly a wet afternoon has a job in it.
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I printed these for a rainy Tuesday and expected ten minutes. We were still going forty minutes later, having found circles in the washing machine door, the clock, a saucepan lid and a button.
The magnifying glass is doing nothing useful and is absolutely essential. Carrying it makes it a hunt rather than a worksheet.
The version that stuck is the outdoor one. We take three cards on the school walk now and shapes get shouted at me from the buggy the whole way.
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Print and cut out the eight shape cards. Laminate them if this is going to live in the bag.
Lay all eight cards face up and name each shape together, tracing the outline with a finger.
Hand over one card only. One card at a time is the whole trick - eight at once and nobody hunts anything.
Send them off to find that shape in the house, and bring back one object that matches.
Put the object on the matching sorting mat and tick the tally sheet, then swap for the next card.
When every card has an object, line the whole collection up and count how many of each shape you found.
For the outdoor version, take three cards and the tick list on a walk - road signs, wheels, windows, bricks.
Finish by choosing the strangest find of the day and drawing it on the back of the tally sheet.
Shape hunt cards + tally + sorting mats (A4 PDF)
Four pages: eight shape cards to cut out, a tally sheet, four large sorting mats, and an outdoor shape hunt tick list.
70-piece counting and sorting bears on Amazon
Six colours, three sizes and a set of cups - they sort onto the mats, count onto the tally, and get used for a hundred other games besides.
Want more? Browse all our free printables for kids.
Do not correct a wrong find. If a slightly oval plate comes back as a circle, take it - the looking is what matters at this age and being marked wrong kills the hunt instantly. Keep three cards permanently in the bag for waiting rooms.
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