What If Your Child Only Wants to Play in One Center?

A parent asked me if they should be worried because their child spends a lot of time in a certain center.  Which got me thinking, maybe I should explain a little about how our centers work. 

Each of our centers is it's own little subject, which overlaps nicely with all the other centers.  For example, our science center is all about science and sensory experiences, but we have apple pie play dough there right now, which is directly related to our Apple Project, and playing with this play dough develops the muscles that will help your child write.  There are many things to sketch and write about in the science center, as well as tools that scientists use.

Each center has books related to that center.  Our block center has many books about building and vehicles and other related topics.  The art center has a basket of art books, some are picture books, some are informational.  And so on.

Each center also has writing materials.  We try very hard to encourage children to plan what they are going to do or build or create or work on, as well as representing what they see.  They love to make lists, write notes, write their friends names, write what they are eating, write labels, etc. in all the centers. 

So, if your child only seems to want to play with the blocks, just know that they are learning negotiation skills, planning what they want to build, cooperating with other children there, learning math skills (studies show that playing with blocks improves later math performance in children), learning about balance and shapes, language development, and so many other things I can't even list them all. 

I'm okay with that.