Hellobee

My son was around two years old when we first introduced a scissor cutting tray. The first step was to select a suitable pair of scissors. There are lots of child friendly scissors available. We chose a pair that were small for his hands, were sharp enough to cut paper and had a blunt tip.

The first activity we presented him was simple snipping of thin card pieces. Many children love scissor cutting and love just snipping away!

Quite a few months later once my son was proficient at using the scissors, we presented him with thin pieces of card with printed lines. We encouraged him to snip the card on the line.

Once he could cut on the line we gave him other images to make it interesting. With this insect cutting activity below the child can paste the insects onto paper when they have finished cutting.

With lots of practice and over many more months he was ready to cut out shapes and images.

Magazines are great for cutting practice but we have found simple shapes are best. With this activity below I have printed basic fruit images for him to cut out, some with straight lines some with curved.

These printed cards below have diagonal and curved lines. This is fantastic practice, great for building hand strength and coordination. Below my son Otis is demonstrating a tip I picked up from a teacher. Draw a happy face on your child’s thumb if they have problems holding the scissors upwards. Teach the child to have the happy face always smiling upwards while cutting. This prevents them from rotating their hand which some children tend to do.

Only recently at four years old Otis has started cutting a spiral or ‘snakes.’ Again this is great practice and helps the child to develop really important life skills.

Have you tried any of these cutting activities? Do you have any tips on teaching children to cut with scissors?