Identifying shapes

[AnaYorks]

Just a quick one, really - at what age are children normally able to identify simple shapes (square, circle, triangle, star - that kind of thing), and at what age would you expect them to be able to use that understanding to describe other things that are that shape (e.g. a box as square, a toilet roll as a circle etc).

Thanks everyone.

Any age between 1 and 3 I'd say. My DD was doing this aged 18 months but my DS isn't yet aged 19 months although he is describing all circles as ball. I would also say if they were 3 that wouldn't be an issue. By age 4 I'd expect children to recognise basic shapes.

Anytime between 2 and 5 years old. (A square box is a cuboid and toilet roll is a cylinder!)

18mnths - 3? Depending on whether a carer has actually pointed out / introduced shapes to them of course.

My 18mo knows circle, square, triangle and star. He can't actually say triangle but if you say 'where's the triangle?' he reliably points to it.

Nowhere near describing other things using shape names though. Maybe he thinks 'ooh, the top of that box is square' but he doesn't have the language to express it.

TBH even in Y1/2 in maths they are still working on describing objects 'using mathematical language' (such as what shape the faces are) so there's plenty of time to work on that.

Dd1 could do loads at 18 months. Dd2 is 2.5 and can only reliably recognise heart shape

More like 3-4yo+ for my DC.
They ended up high achievers later, btw, in maths & other things.

My dd has been able to do it since about 26 mths I think.

Think it mainly depends how much time you spend showing them shapes? DS has a flap book that he likes that is to do with shapes. I really think between 14-17 months or so it was the flaps he was interested in and often picked the book up in order to play with them. He's just picked up the shape names as a by-product.

Don't think knowing shape names is any indicator of genius or otherwise.

My 2.2 y.o. DS has known them for ages thanks to a book with shapes which was one of his favourites - probably since about 18 months or so.

It depends on how much I talk to him - he recently learnt octogon but that was only because I was talking about one of his dough cutters which is an octogon.

He doesn't recognise objects as being a particular shape yet though.

DS is very mathematical, loves puzzles and shapes, but he didn't speak before he was three (first words at 2.5). However, he would recognise shapes and pick them out of books, reliably point at the correct shape, and on top of that, he would pick shapes from every day circumstances - for example, we'd walk on the pavement, and he would stop and look down, and point at a square manhole cover or something, tracing it with his finger, and look at us as if to say 'I recognise that shape'. He would do that also with fences that had triangle shapes in them, or circles, he could do puzzles in no time at all, recognise repeating patterns, etc. Today he asked me 'what's the smallest minus number mum' (he is 4) I said I don't know! and then he said 'what's the biggest minus number'. Also he asked my husband today what that sign meant (making a division sign with his finger - so we spent half an hour talking about divisions at the dinner table).

My other DS doesn't have that mathematical mindset and he learned his shapes the more traditional way, with little books and shape sorters, and learned them between 2 and 3, and up to 5 years old for more complex ones like cylindres and cubes, etc.