Montessori Practical Life transferring activities seem redundant and boring to me… and absolutely irresistible to my kid. I think my older one, Sunshine, can spend hours just pouring water or spooning beans. Though it’s tongs and tweezers that are the dearest to his heart!

This activity came together spontaneously, but it immediately became his favorite out of all our similar activities.

What did we use? I happened to have these things in my house…

• Transferring tool: I had training chopsticks for kids
• Where to load the “booty”: ship shaped rubber piece of some bath toy with lots of suction cups (I’ve seen similar in stores: I think their purpose was to prevent slippery bathtub floors)
• “Booty”: I had rounded plastic beads of assorted colors and I added small fuzzy pom-poms.

Originally I thought that he would use beads OR pom-poms. Originally I asked him to load his “booty” only to the cabin (i.e. half of the ship). I tried it – it took so much effort and concentration to move each of the slippery beads and to keep my hand stable to avoid knocking other beads, that I even contemplated using a different booty! Apparently it’s the challenge that keeps his attention. My Sunshine loads all of the beads, and once he is out of it, he proceeds to the easy to grasp pom-poms until the entire ship is done! Who would think?

What are your kid’s favorite practical life activities? Please share!