Students Will Enjoy Hunting for Parallel and Perpendicular Lines in Shapes 

This activity is a fun and effective way to help students practice identifying parallel and perpendicular lines in shapes. By sorting shape cards into categories, students will deepen their understanding of these key geometric concepts. The activity includes two sorting mats, a recording sheet and answer keys, making it a comprehensive resource for both in-class and at-home practice. Perfect for students of all levels, this activity makes learning about parallel and perpendicular lines interactive and enjoyable!

Here are the categories on each sorting mat in this parallel and perpendicular lines in shapes sort:

Sorting Mat 1 Categories

• Shapes with Parallel Lines but NO Perpendicular Lines
• Shapes with Perpendicular Lines but NO Parallel Lines
• Shapes with NEITHER Parallel NOR Perpendicular Lines
• Shapes with Parallel AND Perpendicular Lines

Sorting Mat 2 Categories

• Shapes with Exactly One Pair of Parallel Lines
• Shapes with Two or More Pairs of Parallel Lines
• Shapes with Exactly One Pair of Perpendicular Lines
• Shapes with Two or More Pairs of Perpendicular Lines

The First of Many Classifying 2D Shapes Activities

There are many different 2D shape attributes to teach, so using this classifying 2D shapes activity is a great place to start. Once students have mastered this concept, move on to other shape attributes, such as: 

• Number of sides
• Length of sides 
• Number of angles 
• Types of angles
• Number of vertices
• Curved vs straight lines
• Lines of symmetry
• Regular vs irregular 
• Concave vs convex

We have provided a Google Slides editable version of this parallel and perpendicular lines in shapes resource. Modify the sorting mats to make sorts that align with the attributes above to give this resource many more uses! 

Download This Shapes With Parallel and Perpendicular Lines Activity

Our shapes with parallel and perpendicular lines activity is easy to download and use. To grab your copy, click the drop-down arrow on the download button to choose between the Google Slides or PDF version of this resource.

This resource was created by Brittany Kellogg, a teacher and a Teach Starter collaborator.

Additional 2D Shape Activities

We have many more 2D shape activities to ‘round out’ your geometry unit. Take a look below to see what additional resources may benefit your students. 

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Parallel and Perpendicular Lines Games — Sorting Activity

Play parallel and perpendicular lines games in your classroom to give students practice sorting lines into intersecting, parallel, or perpendicular line categories.

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Sorting by Symmetry: 2D Shape Task Cards

Help students practise sorting 2D shapes by the number of lines of symmetry using this fun set of mathematics sorting cards.

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2D Shape Match

A fun match-up activity to consolidate your students’ knowledge of 2D shapes and their properties.