How to Use Geoboard Activities for Preschoolers

Sharing is caring!

I remember using geoboards in school back in the day and how exciting it was to get an interactive tool for math practice. Let’s talk about how to use geoboard activities for preschoolers to build thinking skills and have fun at the same time.

What is a Geoboard?

Disclaimer: This blog post contains affiliate links. If you use them, I might be rewarded credit or a commission of the sale. Please note that I only recommend tools that I personally use and love and I always have my readers’ best interest at heart.

A geoboard is a manipulative used to teach concepts from geometry such as shapes, area, perimeter, angles, and more. A wood base with nails placed in a grid pattern forms a geoboard. Students copy various shapes and designs using rubber bands on the grid.

Did you know you can make one yourself? Or if you prefer, buy a plastic version of the classic geoboard. If your child is allergic to latex, use non-latex loom bands.

Geoboard Activities for Preschoolers

As your child explores rubber bands and grids, he or she will develop some very important skills. Fine motor skills improve as the student works with his or her hands. Thinking skills are developing as the student studies and copies rubber band designs. Because your child is counting nails and tracking the patterns in a grid, number sense is growing.

Preschoolers use geoboards to study shapes and practice thinking skills. As students study geoboard activity sheets and copy images onto the geoboard using rubber bands, they use counting, spatial awareness, and visual perceptual skills. Concentration is improved. Hand-eye coordination increases. Muscles are strengthened. Geoboards are not meaningless busy work.

Give your Child Freedom

Children create incredibly fun art using geoboards and rubber bands. Give your student the freedom to explore creating images using the geoboard and colored rubber bands. Look at geoboard art with your child. Then, talk about what makes the art exciting or impressive. Find out what your child can do with geoboards by giving them the freedom to explore without boundaries.

Geoboard Activity Sheets

A starter set of very basic geoboared activity sheets comes with your geoboard purchase. Simple activity sheets give your preschooler something to start out with. First, children copy basic designs with rubberbands on the grid. Alphabet Geoboard Activity Sheets can be added as the student masters more basic sheets.

Work with your child to show them how to count rows and lines of nails and place the rubber bands according to the pattern. It may take some time and practice before your chid can stretch and place the rubber bands. Children sometimes get frustrated when a rubber band is misplaced or the design gets messed up. Help your student practice calming breaths if the geoboard activity becomes stressful.

More Geoboard Activities for Kids

Provide geoboards and rubber bands for your student to explore in a box of math manipulatives. I like to require fifteen minutes of work with math manipulatives and you can include many different manipulatives in a box for your child to choose from. Sometimes it works better to have several different boxes that you rotate so that none of the activities become boring. Children love geoboard play! You can find lots of different geoboard activities for preschoolers on the web. I’ve found a few things that make geoboard play easy and fun.

• Alphabet Geoboard Activity Sheets
• Junior Learning Geoboard Activities
• Extra Rubberbands
• Geoboard Light Table Play from Where Imagination Grows.
• DIY Geoboard Maze from B-Inspired Mama
• Number and Letter Sequencing from An Every Day Story

A Few Free Geoboard Printables

Play with these Number Cards Free Printable from Making Learning Fun.

Perimeter and Area Geoboard Exploration from Life Over Cs work great for more advanced preschoolers.

Teach Beside Me has Spring Geoboard Activity Cards.

Geoboard Constellations are a fun twist on geoboard play from Schooltime Snippets

Something 2 Offer has a fun lesson on Learning Shapes with the Geoboard.

Explore Shapes in Other Ways

Finished with geoboard play? Try these different activities to help your preschool child explore the various shapes and learn their names. As you do these different learning activities together be sure to say the name of each shape several times as you build the shape.

• Fine Motor Shapes Activity. Use pony beads and glue to review shapes.
• Build the Shapes with Marshmallows. Use toothpicks and marshmallows to build the different shapes.
• Gross Motor Skills Shapes Game. Use painters tape and toys to learn the shapes and their names.