Cutting, like drawing, is a skill that develops as a child’s fine motor skills matures. The more control children have over the scissors in their hands, the more complex their cutting skills become.

 
When children begin to cut with scissors, teach them to hold scissors correctly with their elbows close to their bodies and their hand turned so their thumb is on top.

• At ages 3-4, children can usually cut paper in half in more or less a straight line.
• Between 4-5 years using a pair of scissors, children should be able to cut out a big circle with scissors; and a 10cm square within 0.5cm accuracy.

We practised our cutting as we made some paper snowflakes.

Colour in a circular piece of paper.

Fold the paper into quarters and cut out some shapes along the edges.
To scaffold N, I drew some triangles for him to cut out.

Unfold the paper and you’ve got yourself a cut out snowflake.

 
To make it easier, use stiff paper rather than flimsy paper.

 
Remember ‘thumbs up’ – (hold paper with thumbs up, hold scissors with thumbs up).

 
Keep scissors pointing away from body, not parallel to tummy.

N: 3 years, 9 months.

March 2012

The post Cut Out Snowflakes by Pauline appeared first on Lessons Learnt Journal.

• At 12 months – 2 years the crayon is held initially in the palm with the thumbs pointing upwards (in a dagger grasp); the child scribbles vigorously in imitation; often draws a stroke then covers it with many scribbles; and is able to imitate drawing a vertical line.
• At 2 – 3 years the crayon is often held across all fingers in their palm with thumbs pointing down (pronate grasp); the child imitates drawing a circle; and is able to copy horizontal and vertical lines.
• At 3-4 years the crayon may be held with all four fingers on the pencil shaft opposite the thumb (quadropod grasp) or just their index thumb and middle fingers in a static tripod grasp (where the movement comes from the wrist) or a dynamic tripod grasp (where the fingers move independently for optimal accuracy in writing and drawing).

So, at the 3-4 year mark, whether your child has a quadropod grasp, a static tripod grasp or a dynamic tripod grasp, he/she has gained enough control over the pencil or crayon to be able to copy circles, imitate a zig zag line and join two dots as well as draw a man with a head and one other body part. Humans are so wonderfully made, wouldn’t you agree?

I came across this game for practising drawing circles from a really great blog, but for the life of me I can’t backtrack and find the blog and post. (If you know where it’s from, please comment here so I can acknowledge them because this game is such a great idea).

Draw a circle on a piece of paper. Then draw another circle within that circle.

And another circle within that circle. Continue till you can’t draw any more circles and can only fit in a dot.

I provided some scaffolding by taking turns drawing circles with M.

Big pieces of paper and crayons make it easier.

When drawing, watch out for hunching over the paper; gripping the crayon too tightly; reverting to pronate or dagger grasp; not crossing the midline of the body but swapping hands throughout the activity.

M extended the learning experience by folding up the circle into quarters and cutting along the curved lines we had drawn. Cutting is another skill that develops as a child’s fine motor skills matures (check out our cut out snowflakes).

 M: 3 years, 9 months

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