Shape Analogies Worksheet: Find the Pattern!
This shape analogy worksheet pushes children ages 3-5 beyond simple shape naming into relational reasoning, asking them to figure out how two shapes relate to each other and then apply that same relationship to a third shape. This 'this is to that as this is to what' thinking is an early form of the analogical reasoning used throughout later math and logic problems. Because the task requires holding two pieces of information in mind at once — the shape and the relationship — it offers meaningfully more challenge than basic shape matching.
Curriculum
How to use this worksheet
Look at the first two shapes in a row together and discuss how they're related, such as one being a bigger or smaller version of the other, or a different color. Then look at the third shape and figure out what relationship it needs to complete the same pattern. Have your child draw or select the missing shape in the empty box. Review each completed analogy together, explaining the relationship in simple words.
Materials needed
- Pencil
- Crayons
Extension activities
- •Create your own shape analogy problems using shapes cut from colored paper.
- •Use real-world objects to demonstrate analogies, like a ball is to a circle as a box is to a square.
- •Draw and color the shapes used in each analogy for extra reinforcement.
- •Play a shape scavenger hunt, finding real objects that match shapes from the worksheet.
- •Build simple analogies with size instead of shape, like big block is to small block as big ball is to what.
Tips for parents and teachers
Encourage children to explain their reasoning out loud, since analogical thinking benefits enormously from being talked through rather than solved silently. Help them identify the relationship between the first two shapes clearly before they try to solve the analogy, since skipping that step usually leads to guessing. This is a genuinely advanced task for preschoolers, so keep expectations flexible and celebrate partial understanding.
Written by
Hemsweta Jain · Teacher Cheena
MBA and Early Childhood Educator, teaching since 2014 · Founder of RaisoActive, Mumbai
Every RaisoActive worksheet is designed and checked by the founder before publishing.
Published · Last reviewed
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