Shapes with 4 sides

2D shapes with four sides

Two-dimensional (2D) shapes are completely flat.

2D shapes can be found printed in a book or on a website.

2D shapes have sides and corners.

A rectangle has 4 straight sides and 4 corners.

A square is a special type of rectangle, where all 4 sides are the same length.

Quiz: Shapes with 4 sides

Why not see how much you know about this topic already? Then, complete the guide and see if you can beat your score.

Rectangles

Here are three lines. They make three sides of a shape.

Do you know what shape it will be if you draw another line?

Look, if you draw a line straight down and close the shape it makes a rectangle.

A rectangle has 4 sides. It has two short sides and 2 long sides.

A rectangle also has 4 corners. These are where the lines together.

A corner is also known as a vertex.

Rectangles don't all look the same.

Here are some more examples. Some have been turned, some are long and thin, others are shorter and wider.

Squares

Now let's draw a square.

A square is a type of rectangle. It also has 4 sides and 4 corners.

The difference is that all of the sides of a square are the same length.

Can you count the 4 sides and 4 corners on these squares?

Quadrilaterals

Shapes with four sides are known as quadrilaterals.

Here are the different types of shapes with 4 sides.

They might all look slightly different, but can you see that all these shapes have 4 sides and 4 corners?

Example 1

Look at these 4 shapes.

Example 2

Now look at these shapes.