Transportation Theme

• Fill your building center with various transportation-related items to promote an awareness of the different modes of transportation. Set out toy airplanes, cars, trucks, buses, trains and bicycles. Offer children street signs, stoplights and other transportation-related accessories. Encourage children to use the blocks to build roads, runways and bridges for the transportation items. Invite them to play with the transportation items in combination with the blocks. While children are playing in this transportation-themed building center, they not only learn about the different ways that people travel, they also learn about important rules of the road.
  
  

Animal Theme

• Incorporate animals and animal-related accessories in your building center to foster an understanding of the habitat and way of life of different types of animals. Provide children with plush and plastic birds, aquatic animals, dogs, cats and jungle animals. Set out materials that children can use in addition to the blocks to create homes for the animals, such as feathers, fabric and crepe paper streamers. Blocks, feathers and fabric can be used to build trees and nests; crepe paper streamers can be used to fashion jungle vines. Coral reefs can be fashioned out of blocks and fabric.
  
  

Winter Theme

• When discussing winter with your kindergarten students, allow them to create a winter wonderland in the building center. Foam packing peanuts, foam balls, wads of white paper and winter clothing are just some ideas that you can include in the building center for this theme. Children can use the blocks to build igloos and snow forts. The packing peanuts can be used to simulate snow falling on the ground. Snowmen can be constructed from foam balls. Children can dress up in the winter clothing and use the wads of white paper to have a snowball fight.
  
  

Construction Theme

• A construction theme is quite fitting for a building center. Allow children to act out the role of construction workers and architects by incorporating hard hats, tool belts, play tools, pieces of paper that can be used for pretend blueprints, pencils, rulers and tape measures into the center. Students can draw pretend blueprints and don the construction hats and tool belts as they use tools, rulers and blocks to construct the buildings they have designed.