Scissor Skills
Many young children love to use scissors even though learning to use them can be quite challenging. If your child is having some difficulty opening and closing the scissors with one hand, try some “pre-scissor” activities that encourage the same movement initially:
Tips and Strategies:
- Squeezing water with turkey basters
- Picking up items with tongs or tweezers
- Using children’s chopsticks (available at some toy stores)
- Pick up and release small objects with thumb and fingers
- Using a hole punch (may have to use both hands), put several holes in a piece of paper. You could then use this as a “sewing card” using a shoe lace or string to lace through the holes.
- Squeeze, roll, pinch – play dough or silly putty. You can also practice cutting playdoh with plastic scissors
- Squeeze toys
- Hand or finger puppets – to encourage increased opening and closing movements of the fingers
Tips and Strategies:
- Remind and demonstrate strategies before (e.g., ‘thumbs up’)
- Use stickers on thumb nails for “thumbs up” or smaller circles on the table for “elbows down” (although some kids do better with elbows tucked by their sides)
- Keep your helper hand thumb on the thing you are keeping (not the scrap)
- Thicker paper will be easier to cut and provides more feedback
- Right-handed students typically do best when cutting out their shapes in a counter-clockwise direction, whereas left-handed students typically benefit from cutting out shapes in a clockwise direction
- Continue to work on lots of two-handed activities (e.g., Playdoh, tearing cotton balls, pulling apart Lego or Duplo blocks, tearing paper, beading, lacing, etc.
- For some kids, try:
- Making the line thicker with a marker
- Providing verbal reminders to sequence hands (e.g. “cut, cut, cut, stop, turn”); try visual cues too
- Drawing a line from the edge of the paper to show them how to guide their scissors to the shape