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Cutting Practice Made Fun – No Worksheets Needed!

Published about 1 month ago • 1 min read

Hello!

I was chatting to a 1st grade teacher the other day and she was telling me how many kids are starting school with poor fine motor skills and not able to use scissors appropriately!

I know giving your preschooler a pair of scissors can seem a bit daunting, but these fine motor skills are so important for so many life skills and for hand-writing.

Here are a few tips for getting started with scissor skills:

  • Before you start with scissors, make sure your child has done lots of fine motor activities to strengthen their hand muscles and work on all the skills needed to cut.
  • Provide child-sized scissors with short metal blades, and a blunt tip for safety, and left handed scissors if your child is left handed.
  • Show your child how to hold scissors correctly, with their thumb in the small hole and fingers in the bigger hole and their thumb up. Stick googly eyes on the top of the scissors as a reminder.
  • Talk to your child about how to use scissors safely and appropriately. Remind them what is and isn’t ok to cut often.

And here are some ideas to help kids develop scissor skills in fun, hands-on ways (not boring worksheets):

  1. ​Simple Cutting Practice Tray​
  2. ​Cutting Flowers and Leaves​
  3. ​Sticky Cutting Tray Activity​
  4. ​Simple Strip Collage - Cut and Paste.​
  5. ​Cutting Paper Dolls and Paper Chains.​
  6. ​Cupcake Liner Snowflakes​

Find even more scissor skills activities for beginners and more advanced cutters here.

Kate

PS. Remember to supervise your preschools while using scissors, and store them out of reach. One of my kids had a habit of cutting her own hair, quite often, so I learned this the hard way!

Picklebums

Fun ideas for kids!

Whether you are a parent looking for fun ideas to keep your kids busy, or a teacher looking for great learning activities that won’t take you hours to set up, we’ve got lots of fun and easy activities for kids aged 2-10, and lots of printables, tips and tricks, to make life easier and more fun for everyone!

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