(affiliate link) at a book fair and immediately saw a matching book-based activity perfect for young children. 
It's printed as a sturdy board book which doesn't make it perfect for classroom sharing given it's small size but with cut-out layered shapes and bright colours, it still engages young children who also love it's transport theme. The author arranges coloured shapes to construct all different types of vehicles - planes, trains and automobiles!
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After reading the book aloud to the class and then going back over each page to look at how each picture was made ('What shapes do you see? Do you see a triangle? Do you see a rectangle?'), I challenged the children to use some of the shapes in our classroom to make their own picture. It didn't have to be a vehicle, it could be anything they wanted. I had put together a big box of flat wooden shapes mixed with some recycled materials ready for the children to use so with that they set to work building their own creations.
It was amazing to see what they came up with and how excited they were to tell me what they'd made.
For the second part of the lesson, I brought the class back together asking them to leave their work where it was so we could all look at what they're made. Following our gallery walk, we sat back down on the floor to talk about how best to record our work. They had a few good suggestions - 'Take a photo of it' and 'Draw it' when I showed them the paper shapes I'd precut. I asked if they could re-make their creations now using the paper shapes.
They busily went to work choosing the right shapes and only a few needed some help in ordering which shape to glue in first. Don't they look awesome!
