Activity:

Have students work with partners facing each other or sitting back to back. If the partners sit face-to-face, put a divider between them so the two cannot see each other’s work. First, one student creates a design. Then he/she gives directions to the partner so the partner can re-create the design using blocks, without looking at it. The re-creator then explains to the designer what the design looks like. Finally, they remove the divider and compare their designs to see if the designs match. Students will switch roles and repeat the activity. A variation would be the teacher giving directions to the entire class and pairs of students trying to recreate the design.

Activity note:  All students need the same set of blocks. When students describe their design, be sure they include the terms outlined in the grade-level expectation (e.g., circle, rectangle) as well as positional words such as above, below, left, right, perpendicular.2

Activity:

Give students various two- and three-dimensional shapes and have them sort the shapes into different groups while giving their reasons for sorting.