Play Dough And Scissors

July 24, 2013 by Shellie Wilson 5 Comments

Recently I spent sometime with 4-6 year old’s and I was very surprised to see that they could not use scissors correctly. I am assuming that because my children have grown up with scissors on the table most of the time (due to craft) they picked it up quickly. One little boy struggled not only to hold the scissors but to hold the thin paper. This idea from mamapapabubba.com is a great idea. It utilizes a material (play dough) that the kids are familiar in handling.

So this starts a question :

When did you introduce Scissors to you child? Have the actually ever cut themselves?

Comments

Marilyn Noah says
July 24, 2013 at 4:49 pm
My kids are grown but they started using real scissors at 4-5. A girl & a boy and they never cut themselves. Started with big shapes.
Jen says
July 24, 2013 at 7:36 pm
Thanks so much for sharing our post! 🙂
sandy b says
July 24, 2013 at 9:23 pm
My daughter seemed to be proficent before i officially gave them to her. I just “loved” that first haircut. I then officially gave her access to scissors and paper its been a few years but she had to be 2 or a little younger. She never injured herself and hair regrows.
Debra says
July 25, 2013 at 11:06 am
From my teaching experience, I have seen many 5-6 year olds who have no idea how to hold scissors, or the paper. I just wonder if some parents don’t provide “craft time” as much as “video game time”. My son was using scissors at daycare (with supervision)from 3 yrs on.
Stephanie says
July 26, 2013 at 8:32 am
My daughter was desperate to get ahold of my scissors from a very early age, but I made her wait until she was about two, I think… I found some safety scissors that were supposedly for very small children- completely made of plastic with no sharp points or edges anywhere. She loved them and used them constantly, but she got frustrated easily because they didn’t work very well. But, at least she never cut anything that wasn’t meant to be cut! Which was my goal. For Easter this year, I got her a new pair of “safety” scissors. They’re labeled as 4+. As far as I can tell, she has never touched them. But she has been (supervised only!) using my extremely sharp and pointy embroidery scissors. She does okay, and knows to be super careful of where her fingers are.

Have you read?

Fine Motor Task Cards for Kids

I don’t know why Pinterest just suddenly decided I needed to see all the content about task cards and task boxes for kids, but these ideas are great for the classroom to keep in centers or have on hand for early finishers. You can also use them at home as quiet bags or boxes for kids to use when younger siblings might be sleeping, or in the car for a non-screen activity.

Let’s take a look at some fine motor skill task cards and how you can use them to teach kids skills while they play.

Pre-K Pages has a nice set of playdough task cards you can use in boxes or bags with a little tray (or they can just work on the table if they are sitting at a table). Working with clay or play dough is a great fine motor skill exercise, or you can add these to your playdough center if you have one to give them a little bit of direction while they work.

Teaching Mama has a bunch of great ideas for fine motor task boxes, from practicing working a glue bottle to threading beads, using clothespins or scissors, dropping water, finger painting and more. There’s a free printable that shows all the task options she talks through in the post if you want to make your own little boxes, or just keep these ideas on hand when you’re ready to add some fine motor fun to your days.

One of the ideas she mentions in that post is working with a hole punch, and Early Learning Ideas has a whole bunch (the urge to write “hole bunch” is strong) of ideas for printables that help kids practice hole punching, whether it’s a strip with circles on it for them to punch or pictures that include circles for punching, these ideas make it a little more fun to practice this important skill.

My Happy Place Teaching has a whole post about using fine motor task boxes in kindergarten, and her paid resource includes more than 100 task ideas with printables. But if you don’t need 100 boxes you can still get some good ideas from this post about different tasks to include and why and when you can use them. She also mentions using them in the morning while you’re busy with kids coming in at different times, which is a great idea.

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Have you read?

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