How to teach shapes to a preschooler
Shapes are a looking skill before they are a naming one. What to do first, the order that helps, and why it matters for reading later.
Teaching a preschooler about recycling
Usman Mughal · Founder & CEO, Mobizio
3 min read
Most advice about teaching children to recycle starts with the planet.
At three and four that is the wrong end. Climate is an abstraction, and abstractions are exactly what this age has least grip on. What a preschooler can do brilliantly is sort things into the right container, and that turns out to be the whole job.
It is a sorting game first
Recycling asks a child to look at an object, work out which group it belongs to, and put it there. That is the same skill underneath shapes and colours, with a real bin at the end of it instead of a puzzle.
Which means you can teach it exactly the same way: matching, then sorting, then the words.
The Department for Education files this kind of thing under understanding the world, alongside noticing how things work and caring for living things. It sits closer to gardening than to science.
Start with two bins, not six
Six categories at once is a wall. Two is a game.
Begin with paper and everything else. Paper is easy to recognise, it is safe to handle, and there is a lot of it.
When that is automatic, add a third. Our own recycling activity uses six groups, which is roughly what an adult kerbside system asks for:
| Bin | Easy examples |
|---|---|
| Paper | Cereal boxes, envelopes, the back of a drawing |
| Glass | Jam jars, bottles (you carry these) |
| Metal | Tins, foil, drinks cans |
| Plastic | Bottles, tubs, milk cartons |
| Organic | Peelings, apple cores, tea bags |
| Electrical | Dead batteries, an old cable |
Six is the destination, not the starting line.
Use the real bins
A sorting game on paper teaches sorting. The real bin teaches that it matters.
Give them a job that is genuinely theirs: the paper goes in the paper bin, and they are the one who does it. Every time. A job with your name on it at four is a serious thing.
One warning worth having. What actually goes in which bin depends entirely on your council, and the rules differ enough between areas that a general app or book will contradict your own collection. Check yours once, then teach that.
What to say about why
Keep it small and true.
- "This one gets made into a new one." Concrete, and correct.
- "This one goes in the ground and stays there." Also correct, and children find it genuinely interesting.
- Skip melting ice caps. It is either meaningless or frightening, and neither helps.
If they ask a bigger question, answer the bigger question. Do not lead with it.
Where an app fits
Sorting on a screen is a safe place to make mistakes. Nobody has to handle broken glass to find out that a jam jar is not paper, and the app can say the category name out loud every time.
It also has an obvious limit. The bin at the end of a screen game is not real, and the whole point of this one is that the real bin is.
So: play the game, then do the actual bins together. The second half is where the learning lands.
Our Green Guardians activity sorts rubbish into those six groups, and it is one of fifty-four activities that work with no internet at all.
Questions parents ask
- What age can a child start helping with recycling?
- Around three, as a sorting job rather than an environmental lesson. Start with one category they own completely, usually paper, and let them do it every time. The sorting skill is well within reach at three even though the reasoning behind it is not.
- How do I explain recycling to a preschooler?
- Keep it concrete. This one gets made into a new one, and this one goes in the ground and stays there. Both are true and both are interesting at four. Leave the climate explanation until they ask, because it is either meaningless or frightening at this age.
- How many recycling categories should I start with?
- Two. Paper and everything else. Paper is easy to recognise and safe to handle. Add categories one at a time once the previous one is automatic, up to the five or six a kerbside collection usually asks for.
- Does a recycling app teach the right rules?
- Only roughly. What goes in which bin depends on your local council, and the rules differ enough between areas that any general app or book will contradict your own collection somewhere. Use the app for the sorting skill, then check your council's list once and teach that.
Where this comes from
- Department for Education: Understanding the world
Where caring for the environment sits in the early years framework.
- GOV.UK: Recycling collections
Rules are set by your council, so check yours before teaching a list.
- CDC: Learn the Signs. Act Early. milestones
Milestone checklists by age, including sorting and following instructions.
Usman Mughal
Founder & CEO, Mobizio
Usman is the founder and CEO of Mobizio, and has shipped Preschool Kids Academy since 2018. He writes from that: what small children actually do with the app, and the questions parents send in. Where an answer is a matter of evidence rather than experience, the source is linked rather than asserted.
Part of a series
This is one of 5 guides in Shapes, colours and counting, in the order a child meets them.
Read next
What memory and matching games actually teach
Not a better memory. Something more useful than that, and a clear reason to start with four cards rather than twenty.
Published by Mobizio Studio. Every child is different, and nothing here is medical or developmental advice.