Scissor cutting skills are important and challenging practical life skills for preschoolers. Today, I want to share some helpful ideas for creating Montessori-inspired scissor cutting activities.
First, I want to share some helpful posts about developing scissor cutting skills. The posts aren’t intended as Montessori-inspired ideas, but they have helpful ideas that can be applied to a Montessori-inspired curriculum.
Scissor Skills Information
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10 activities to help develop pre-scissor skills to get the body ready for cutting from PediaStaff
Cutting up: Fine motor activities to help develop scissor skills from Creative Connections for Kids
Cutting: Everything You Need to Know – Advice from an OT from Miss Mancy’s Blog
Tips for Teaching Scissor Cutting from Stay at Home Educator
Montessori-Inspired Paper Cutting Activities
You’ll find lots of Montessori-inspired paper cutting activities and ideas in my roundup post:
Montessori-Inspired Paper Cutting Activities
Non-Paper Scissor Cutting Activities
Here are some creative ideas for a variety of materials that can be used with Montessori-inspired trays or tables.
A cutting tray with strings of beads is easy to prepare for any season or holiday!
A nature cutting tray is always fun!
Nature Cuttings (Photo from No Time for Flash Cards)
Nature Cuttings – Outdoor Scissor Skills Activity from No Time for Flash Cards
Cutting Grass Sensory Tub from Strong Start
Cutting Leaves, Raffia, and Cornstalks (Photo from Lalymom)
Cutting Leaves, Raffia, and Cornstalks from Lalymom
Birthday Themed Cutting Practice from Lalymom
Colored Spaghetti Scissor Practice from Moments of Mommyhood
5 Cutting Activities for Preschoolers from Happy Hooligans
Cutting Station (Photo from Happy Hooligans)
Scissor Practice – 5 More Cutting Activities for Kids from Happy Hooligans
Cutting Straws from Hands On : As We Grow
Cutting Tray (Photo from Mama. Papa. Bubba)
Developing Scissor Skills with a Cutting Tray from Mama. Papa. Bubba
Cutting Skills Tray (Photo from Little Bins for Little Hands
Cutting Skills Tray from Little Bins for Little Hands (Only the photo is available.)
Cutting Challenge (Photo from Sorting Sprinkles)
Scissor Skills – Progression and Cutting Challenges from Sorting Sprinkles
Improving Scissor Skills with Playdough from Sugar Aunts
Foam Cutting and Beading (Photo from Sugar Aunts)
Foam Beading: fine motor. scissor use. tripod grasp. from Sugar Aunts
All Our Free Themed Cutting Strips
I’ve arranged the following gallery in alphabetical order. Just click on an image to go to the post with the related free printable!
You can see all our free cutting strips with the latest at the top here.
The most important things to do are to observe your child for readiness for scissor cutting activities and then find an activity that captures your child’s attention.
What is your child’s favorite scissor cutting activity?
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What a fantastic list of ideas! Thank you for linking up with Mom’s Library, I’ll be sharing your post this week at Crystal’s Tiny Treasures so more people can benefit from your hard work. Have a great week!
My 2.5 yo started cutting with playdoh about a year ago. Now he’s getting much better at cutting strips of paper. But I find that it tends to be “boring” for him. Recently, we’ve started cutting food and I find that it makes him concentrate longer. He’s seen me do it tons of times, and now he gets a chance to help out in the kitchen. I cut my food with scissors all the time … just easier that way 😉
A fab round up Deb … we’ve struggled a bit with scissors as my 4 year old can’t quite decide if she’s left or right handed so can really make use of these 🙂
Thank you for this post. My 3yo son right now is in cutting and he is progressing every day what makes me happy because thus summer still cutting was really big challenge for him. I will definetlly use the ideas from this post to incorporate them in our everyday life. Right now he is cutting just one thing- old magazines.
Fantastic resource. I particularly like the non-paper cutting methods. Shall certainly be revisiting this many times.