Little TheraPeas Paediatric Services
Using scissors is now a prerequisite for Prep but it takes time and practice to learn how to cut with scissors. Using scissors is a motor skill that involves use of the small muscles of the hand and (just like all areas of motor development) has typical steps towards mastery.
First, your little pea needs to learn how to hold the scissors. Tool use is a vital fine motor skill and is often half the battle in cutting success. Try to encourage them to hold with their thumb on top but if this is where your little pea struggles then you can always gently hold over the top of their hands to help with positioning on the fingers.
The next step is small snips on the page progressing to holding the paper whilst snipping. Our top tips to help with snipping are to try smaller items, string, tape or play dough for example that they can learn to snip easily and quickly with.
Once this is mastered they will learn to cut across the page. Cutting a page starts with cut across a straight line and progresses as follows, cut along a curved line, cut simple shapes (square, circle, triangle) and eventually cut more difficult shapes (heart, star).
Cutting can be as fun or boring as you make it. Give cutting a go this week – work out where your little pea is at and see if you can help them master that scissor skill! Some ideas to get them cutting – integrate it into a craft activity (go back to our February 2020 game of the month for a cool craft suggestion to make your own ring toss game at home!), get them to snip open the bag of rice/chips/muesli bar/etc, get them to cut the tags of new clothes/shoes, have them cut out their favourite word/pictures/numbers in the aldi magazine. Once you have tried it let us know how you went!
