Fun with Shapes | Maths Grade 3 CBSE

Play with it

Six ideas about shapes

Flat shapes, solid shapes, and the way shapes fit together. Tap each term to see what it means, with an example you can spot at home.

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Flat shapes lie on paper. We tell them apart by their sides and corners.
Triangle — 3 sides, 3 corners. Square — 4 equal sides, 4 corners. Rectangle — 4 sides, opposite sides equal. Circle — one curved side, no corners.
A square is a special rectangle in which all four sides are the same length.

Worked example. Count the sides and corners of a square.

A square has 4 sides (all equal) and 4 corners.

Solid shapes take up space and can be held — cube, cuboid, sphere (ball), cylinder (tin), cone (party hat).
A face is a flat surface, an edge is where two faces meet, a corner is where edges meet.
Round shapes roll (ball, can on its side); flat-faced shapes slide (cube, brick).

Worked example. How many faces, edges and corners does a cube have?

A cube has 6 faces, 12 edges and 8 corners — check it on a dice.

Tiling means covering a surface with shapes that fit edge to edge — no gaps, no overlaps.
Squares, rectangles and triangles tile easily. Circles leave gaps, so they do not tile.
We can join cut-out shapes (like a square split into triangles) to make pictures — a house, a boat, a fish.

Worked example. Why do square tiles cover a floor with no gaps?

Their straight sides and square corners meet neatly, so they fit edge to edge with no gaps.

Common mix-up: a circle is flat, but a ball (sphere) is solid. A square is flat, but a cube is solid.

Where you’ll meet it

Square and rectangular tiles cover floors with no gaps — that is tiling at work in your home.

A gift box is a cuboid, a football is a sphere, a party hat is a cone. Knowing shapes helps you pack and stack them.

Festival rangoli and building blocks use shapes that fit together to make beautiful patterns and models.

Check yourself

Nine friendly questions — mostly multiple-choice with one assertion–reason — to check that you can use shapes, not just name them.

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