Transferring

I have read that a good exercise for pre-K children is "transferring," an activity designed to aid pencil holding and manipulating skills. basically, you have the child "transfer" small objects from one place to another with spoons and eventually with tongs.

When I started having Catherine do these exercises, I was shocked at how much she struggled. I was curious to see if Catherine's lack of eating, and hence almost never using a spoon or fork, was the root cause of her deficiency. So, I had Sabrina practice some transferring exercises. She was much better at the activity and could immediately transfer beans from the bowl to the small muffin tins. Of course with Sabrina I have to choose non-food items to transfer! If I had given her a bowl full of fruit loops, she would have eaten them.


Here is Catherine making a chart of stickers. This was a great exercise to get her to count. It required her to stop frequently and count each row several times. I was thrilled that she understood the concept of ZERO and put no stickers on that row. I was also thrilled that she was able to check her work and removed extra stickers when needed.

Catherine practicing transferring with pom-poms: