See Triads for background.
These exercises are intended to grind the shapes of major, minor, and diminished triads into you. They also cover some progressions, and 7th shapes as a bonus. Think about the root notes while you're playing these exercises and you'll learn the note locations on the fretboard too.
These shapes are smaller parts of the CAGED shapes. Picture that mental connection while practicing. Root notes are shown in red. The root is always the lowest-pitched string for root shapes, the highest-pitched string for first inversions, and the middle string for second inversions.
To keep our fingers on the same part of the fretboard, the key changes with each set of exercises. The patterns are the same in all keys, but if you think the chords sound different between inversions: they do!
Strings 1-3. Notation for top string shapes is written an octave lower than it sounds.
This shape is particularly awkward, so don't worry if these feel like a stretch.
Think about linking these triads together. We're using some standard chord progressions here. The last beat of the bar has a little riff including the 7th note. (Because we're playing only three notes, these can sound a little harmonically ambiguous.)
Our top string group has the root note on the 3rd string for root position chords. This links with the second inversion for strings 2-4, and the first inversion group for strings 3-5.
This is a I-IV-V-I progression.