Naming quadrilaterals worksheets

Every shape on this sheet has four sides, so counting them gets a child nowhere. These free printable worksheets are the point where naming a figure stops being counting and starts being a question about its properties.

Naming quadrilaterals
Naming quadrilaterals worksheet — Six four-sided shapes, free printable with answer key

The answer key prints on a separate page.

What's on this sheet

Six four-sided shapes and four of their names under each figure. Because every option has four sides, the side count — which answered the earlier sheet — is now useless, and the child has to look at what actually separates them: whether the opposite sides run parallel, whether all four are the same length, whether the corners are square. That is the point, and it is the reason this is a separate sheet rather than a harder setting on the last one.

Why this sheet works

The distinctions worth knowing are the ones these six force. A square is a rhombus with square corners. A rhombus is a parallelogram with four equal sides. A kite has two pairs of equal sides but they sit next to each other rather than opposite. A trapezoid has exactly one pair of parallel sides. Each of these is a small rule, and a page mixing all six asks for each of them in turn.

How this one works

Name this shape

sides:4
sides:4
quadrilateral
rhombusis alsoa parallelogram
  1. Count the sides first — that is what almost every shape name is built from, and it is one number rather than a picture to recognize.
  2. 4 sides makes it a quadrilateral — and that is where naming gets more careful, because the four-sided shapes have families inside families.
  3. This one is a rhombus — and it is ALSO a parallelogram. Being one does not stop it being the others; the question wants the most exact name that fits.