Tracing Shapes

Tracing shapes is a great activity for developing fine motor skills.  Learning how to draw vertical and horizontal lines found in squares and rectangles is the first step in writing the simplest letters of the alphabet. If your child can draw these two lines along, she can write her first six letters: E, F, H, I, L, and T.

Learning how to draw diagonal lines found in triangles, hexagons, and others will add the ability to write even more letters!  Curved lines found in shapes like circles, ovals and hearts are important for forming tougher letters. 

The worksheets below focus on basic 2D shapes and will offer your child the change to learn how form nice, neat lines--horizontal, vertical, diagonal, and curved.

Let's Start Tracing Shapes!

These tracing worksheets will focus on six basic 2D shapes: circles, rectangles, squares, triangles, ovals, and hearts.  All of the papers follow the same format.

At the top of each page are two complete shapes for tracing.  These are a great way to introduce shapes to your child and they will show him how to correctly form the shape.

Below these first two shapes or four more shapes that are missing parts of them.  Have your child start tracing the shapes and then complete the missing pieces as neatly as possible.

Homeschool Tip: To get the most use out of these worksheets, I recommend laminating them after you print them out and then have your child use a dry erase marker to trace the shapes.  When she is done tracing you can simply wipe off the laminated sheet and keep practicing!

To print out your free tracing worksheets, just click on the pictures below.  This will open up a pdf file for you in another tab.  Then click on the printer icon and you'll be ready to start tracing!

There are plenty more tracing worksheets available covering a wide range of topics including upper and lower case letters, cursive handwriting, number tracing, tracing words and more. 

If you would like to teach your child more about the shapes covered in this lesson, be sure to visit my shapes page (see below).  You can find more in depth activities covering the shapes shown here.  I also created some printable shape flashcards that you can use to teach your child about more 2D and 3D shapes.  Plus, there are some cool shape coloring pages that would be a great way to work on those handwriting skills!