Shapes Around Us Class 4 Maths Chapter 1 CBSE Notes 2025-26

Shapes are found all around us, whether in buildings, objects, or nature. In this chapter, students explore three-dimensional and two-dimensional shapes through examples from monuments like the India Gate and Qutub Minar, and by using simple materials such as blocks, straws, paper, and clay to create models. Understanding these shapes helps us recognise and describe the world better.

Students begin by observing real-life structures and learning how to model buildings using basic shapes. For example, the India Gate model includes parts like the base, pillar, roof, and arch—each can be represented with cubes (for bases), cylinders (for pillars), rectangles (for roofs), and semicircles (for arches). By thinking about the shapes that make up different parts, students understand how complex objects are built from simple geometric figures.

Students are encouraged to explore monuments like Qutub Minar and to recreate them using items found at home, such as empty boxes, bottles, or cans. Qutub Minar, for example, can be modeled with stacked cylinders. This activity develops visual understanding and spatial reasoning, and helps students connect mathematical concepts with real-world structures.

• Buildings use shapes like cubes, cuboids, cylinders, and cones.
• Clay bricks, concrete blocks, and wooden planks are common, all usually have rectangular or square faces.
• Making shapes with found materials helps students see geometry in daily life.

Three-dimensional (3D) shapes are solids that have length, width, and height, such as cubes, cuboids, cylinders, cones, and spheres. Students learn to make nets—flat patterns that can be folded to make 3D shapes. For example, the net of a cube consists of six squares; a cuboid’s net has six rectangles. This skill is important for visualising and constructing solid shapes from flat materials.

Some common 3D shapes students will encounter include triangular prisms, triangular pyramids, pentagonal pyramids, square pyramids, hexagonal prisms, and square prisms. Understanding differences—such as a prism having the same shape on two ends and a pyramid coming to a point—builds a strong foundation in geometry.

Each 3D shape has a set number of faces (flat or curved surfaces), corners (vertices), and edges (where two faces meet). These properties can be compared in a table:

When counting faces, edges, and corners, students are encouraged to notice patterns. For example, try to see if $F + V - E$ leads to a common result, which is Euler’s formula for polyhedra and always equals 2 for convex shapes.

• Cube: 6 faces (all squares), 8 corners, 12 edges.
• Cuboid: 6 faces (rectangles), 8 corners, 12 edges.
• Triangular Pyramid: 4 faces (all triangles), 4 corners, 6 edges.
• Square Pyramid: 5 faces (1 square base, 4 triangles), 5 corners, 8 edges.
• Triangular Prism: 5 faces (2 triangles, 3 rectangles), 6 corners, 9 edges.

Students practice sorting shapes by their faces and edges—such as identifying shapes with straight or curved edges, and those with a specific number of flat faces. They also use Venn diagrams to group shapes based on features like curved or flat faces, helping them visually organize mathematical information.

Some sorting examples include:

• Cylinder: 2 curved edges, 2 flat faces.
• Sphere: 1 curved face, no flat faces, no edges or corners.
• Cone: 1 curved face, 1 flat face, 1 edge, 1 corner.

Students learn about different kinds of angles: right angles (90°), acute angles (less than 90°), and obtuse angles (greater than 90° but less than 180°). Using everyday objects—like corners of books (right angle) or open scissors (acute or obtuse angles)—students find and compare angles around them.

1. Right angles are found in the corners of rectangles and squares.
2. Triangles can have acute, right, or obtuse angles.
3. Regular pentagons have angles greater than 90°, but less than 180°.

Children use straws and dot grids to create and explore different shapes, discovering that triangles tend to keep their shape when pushed (are “rigid”), while rectangles can change shape, creating different types of angles.

Circles are special shapes where every point on the boundary is at the same distance from the center. Students make circles using straws of equal length and check what happens with unequal straws. They learn the parts of a circle: center, radius (distance from center to edge), and diameter (distance across, passing through the center).

• The radius is half the length of the diameter.
• All diameters of a circle pass through the center and are equal in length.
• Using a compass, students can draw perfect circles of different sizes.

The chapter includes hands-on activities and puzzles—like identifying hidden shapes, dividing shapes to get new ones, sorting 2D shapes by the number of sides, and exploring spider web patterns. These interactive tasks reinforce understanding of angles, sides, and symmetry in shapes, making learning fun and memorable.

By engaging with these activities, students develop an intuitive sense for geometry and are encouraged to classify, compare, and construct various shapes—skills that are useful both in mathematics and in daily experiences.

Overall, the chapter “Shapes Around Us” gives a solid introduction to 2D and 3D shapes, their properties, ways to build models, and how to spot mathematical ideas in daily life. It creates a strong base for higher-level geometry and helps students visualise, create, and describe the shapes in the world around them.

CBSE Class 4 Maths Notes Chapter 1 – Shapes Around Us: Key Revision Points

These CBSE Class 4 Maths Chapter 1 Notes make it easy to revise important ideas about 2D and 3D shapes, nets, and angles. Students can use these brief summaries and tables to quickly recall facts before exams and reinforce key mathematical terms used in the chapter. The content is organized for step-by-step learning and better understanding.

By reviewing these structured notes, students will be able to identify main concepts and answer related questions confidently. Whether you need help in practice, assignments, or revision, these notes cover the essential facts about shapes, angles, and their properties in clear, simple language.