Years ago when I was a much younger mom, I would draw straight, zigzag, and curvy lines on paper -- hand my youngsters a pair of scissors and have them cut on the lines. It took a few minutes to prepare, but it was an inexpensive way to have them practice fine motor skills. I'm older, have more kids, and have more grab and go curriculum items. Kumon workbooks are awesome! Each workbook focuses on one skill. In this case, it's cutting. The book is progressive in nature, starting with straight lines and working up to more complicated curves and start/stop/turn cutting pages. The variety of pages is great for my age range of kids. I tear out an appropriate page and let them begin cutting. The paper is a nice weight -- thick, yet pliable.
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| Peter is using 5" Fiskars scissors. |
One thing to keep in mind is choosing appropriate scissors for each child. The scissors Maria's using are spring loaded. The action of squeezing results in a return action of opening. They work OK for toddlers, however, I originally bought them for Joseph. He already had experience of me trying to teach him to use regular scissors, so he struggled with the use of these.
Joseph is using a medium sized scissors. They have an easy action; he does well with these.
We've also used My First Book of Tracing and My Book of Pasting.
Take a trip back to 2011 and see Joseph working on the My Book of Pasting.
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Thanks for this. I need to get some of these for Grayson. I need to help him with his gross motor skills.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for sharing this and putting this in my mind.
You are AWESOME! Pinning on my curriculum board.
Thanks for the kind words; it really lifted my day. We also have one of the easy/first maze workbooks. I complete the maze in pencil and then have Joseph trace the line using a marker. He enjoys doing ONE of those a day. It's a more difficult task and requires all the concentration he can muster up. Thanks for pinning, too.
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