Read the story "Mouse Shapes" by Jim Arnosky. To escape a cat, three mice run and hide in some shapes. Take the class outdoors and draw large shapes with sidewalk chalk. Tell the children to pretend they are little mice and to hide on the shape you name. After they all find their shape, name a new shape for each one to hide on. Instruct them to move to the new shape by different movements such as hopping or skipping.
Preschoolers need to work on fine motor skills to gain control of the small muscles of their hands. Tracing shapes is one way to improve hand/eye coordination and the control necessary to write the letters of the alphabet. Gather various shapes the children can trace and prepare handouts with a grid large enough to accommodate the shapes. Teach the children to mimic writing from left to right and top to bottom by tracing the shapes beginning in the top left corner and continuing in a line across the page.
When preschoolers know at least some of the letters of the alphabet, they can do sorting activities with shapes. You need attribute blocks (shapes) and some shoeboxes covered with plain paper. Label the shoeboxes with letters the children recognize. Tell a child to put a circle in the "A" box. Have the children take turns putting different shapes into the various shoeboxes. Keep the shapes all the same color if they have difficulty realizing a red square and blue square are the same shape.
Teach the children vocabulary words that describe shapes. You need various shapes large enough for everyone to see and pictures of items that they would normally see in that shape glued to poster boards. Examples for the circle poster include a pizza, the sun, a plate and a cookie. Use words such as round, curved, straight, sides, corner, flat, line and point to describe a shape. Have the children take turns using the vocabulary words describing the shape as they point to the picture of an object on the poster board.