Tips for Teaching Scissor Cutting Skills

Tips for Teaching Scissor Skills

Learning how to use scissors plays an important role in developing the fine motor skills young children need in order to hold pencils and crayons. These tips will help you to grow your children’s scissor cutting skills.

Having strong fine motor skills will help children as they begin the tricky process of learning how to write.

It might sound easy, but teaching young children how to cut with scissors is a very complex task.

How to Teach Kids to Cut with Scissors in Preschool

The Importance of Scissor Cutting Skills

The opening and closing motion of cutting with scissors helps children develop the small muscles in their hands otherwise known as fine motor skills. These muscles are crucial for holding a pencil or crayons and gripping and manipulating objects.

Cutting also helps develop eye-hand coordination as children hold the paper with one hand and cut with the other while tracking the movement of the scissors with their eyes.

Another important skill that is developed through cutting is bilateral coordination. Bilateral coordination involves using both sides of the body at the same time while each hand is performing different tasks. For example, to cut a square, the child must hold the paper with one hand and turn it while the other hand is not only opening and closing the scissors but also moving along the line. Easier said than done!

Teaching Kids How to Use Scissors

Tips for Teaching Scissor Cutting Skills

Start by providing high quality scissors for beginners- my absolute favorite brand is Fiskars. Fiskars open and close easily and have a short, blunt tip for safety. Cheaper scissors tend not to cut as well and lead to frustration.

Wrap electrical tape around the thumb hole so children will know where to put their thumb.

Use a song or chant to remind kids where their fingers belong. I use Dr. Jean’s Scissor Snips song from her All Day Long CD.

Start with snipping things like paint chips, play dough, and straws.

Developing Scissor Skills in Preschool
Place samples of each child’s snippings in an envelope and label with their name and date. Place the envelopes in the children’s portfolios to discuss at parent conferences.

Save the fronts of old greeting cards (age appropriate of course) and invite children to cut as they choose. Cards are thicker and provide more resistance and stability that helps beginners hold the paper and maneuver the scissors.

Provide rolling pins in the play dough center.

Provide activities that use tools such as tongs, hole punches, tweezers, eyedroppers, and clothespins to strengthen fine motor skills necessary for cutting.

Fine Motor Tools

Tools to Support the Development of Scissor Skills

 

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Posted by Pre-K Pages on Thursday, March 24, 2016

Free Printable Scissor Skills Checklist

Cutting Skills Checklist

Printable cutting skills checklist for preschool and kindergarten.

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7 thoughts on “Tips for Teaching Scissor Cutting Skills”

  1. Is there a way to print out this article without all the ads? I would love to share with all my teachers!

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  2. Great article! I love the idea about tape to mark thumb hole. I use the cues “thumbs up when we cut” to remind children about correct hand placement when cutting. I also recommend for familes and teachers to keep cereal boxes/cracker boxes to use to practice cutting. Usually the pictures on cereal boxes are very inviting for children or you can turn over to practice fring or simple shapes with some good hand strengthening. Thanks, look forward to sharing this with some teachers.

  3. What excellent advice! I started my class of three year olds on their cutting skills and met with minimal success. Now that I read this I realize I need to back up a bit and start on simpler movements. We will be ripping and snipping! Thank you.

  4. Love all these tips and the band on the scissors to show the kids the correct way to hold the scissors. Instead of the yellow band I always draw a smile face or put star sticker on their thumbnail so they keep their thumb upwards as they always want to see the smiley face/sticker.

  5. We talk about how the scissors looks like an alligator. I draw a dot for the eye so they know to turn the scissors so the eye is on top!

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