Ask students to hunt for shapes in the classroom or at home. Students can point to shapes when they see them, take an imaginary "picture" with their hands as a camera, record findings in a journal or report back to the group with what they found. As an at-home extension, give students a paper bag to fill with examples of shapes from home. Students can also hunt for shapes in magazines, cut them out and make a collage.
Create large cutouts of the basic shapes (square, rectangle, triangle, circle, diamond, oval) to place on the floor. Make about 10 of each shape in a smaller cutout and pass them out to students. Ask students to place their shape on the large corresponding shape. Make an envelope for each shape, give students a shape before lining up to leave the classroom and ask them to put it in the correct envelope. Give students a pre-made graph with a column for each shape. Give them a set of smaller paper shapes or shape stamps and ask them to place them on the graph.
Do this activity with several shapes at once or by introducing one shape at a time. Give each student a piece of yarn about one-foot long. Discuss the characteristics of one shape. For example, a square has four straight sides and four corners. Show examples of squares. Give students a paper square and show them how to put their yarn around the sides to create a yarn square. After students have practiced, collect the paper squares and allow students to experiment with making yarn squares without the paper.
Give students pre-cut paper shapes and ask them to arrange the shapes to create a creature. Once the shapes are in place, students can glue them to a piece of paper and create a background with crayons or markers. To make the lesson more challenging, give students shapes to trace to create a figure or allow them to draw their own shapes. If possible, let students use geoboards to create different shapes and figures.