First and foremost, make sure your children can identify all the shapes. Teach the children the name of each shape, perhaps at circle time or another time when they are sitting quietly.Ask one child to identify the square shapes in the box, one to identify the cylinders, one to identify the rectangles and so on. Show the children how to build a basic structure using all of the shapes. Once the structure is assembled, ask individual children to identify the shapes again within the structure.
Design a picture of a structure that uses the shapes in some way. Start with a basic pattern and make it more complicated in later lessons as the children progress. Give each child a copy of the picture and allow the children to try to build the structure by looking at the picture. Help younger children if they are having trouble identifying the blocks. Take a picture of each child with the finished structure to take home to parents.
Give each student a pencil with a good eraser and a piece of paper. Let each child draw the shapes into a structure. Take the children to the rug and allow each child to try to construct her own work of art. Give suggestions for improvement and help where it is needed. Give prizes for the most creative, the funniest, the most elaborate, the biggest, the smallest and so on. Be sure to give each child a prize to avoid favoritism.
Assign half the students to be designers and the other half to be builders. Choose students who can draw shapes more easily than other students to be designers. Let the designers work together to draw a structure for a building while the builders organize the blocks into groups of shapes. Then, let the builders build the building using the blueprint drawn by the designers. Take a picture of all the students together with the structure and send a copy home to each parent.