Are you looking for fine motor activities for your winter theme? Scissor skills in preschool are an important part of developing fine motor skills, but they can also be the trickiest to teach! This winter fine motor scissor skills tray makes introducing scissors to your kids much easier.
Why is cutting important for preschoolers?
Let’s face it, teaching young children how to use scissors is a lot more complicated than it looks.
Developing fine motor skills and introducing scissors to your little learners is so much more involved than just handing them a pair of scissors and hoping for the best.
In the blink of an eye they’re cutting clothes, hair, and all sorts of things they shouldn’t with scissors – yikes!
Winter Fine Motor Scissor Skills Activities
To help make teaching scissor skills less stressful, I put together a developmental cutting sequence, cutting skills practice pages, and an assessment sheet for you. Now you can meet your kids wherever they are in their individual stages of learning with the fine motor scissor cutting skills bundle.
Winter Scissor Skills Practice For Preschool
A lot of teachers think of the classic snowflake cutting activity when it comes to winter fine motor activities for preschoolers. But if you’ve ever tried it, you know that you end up doing most of the work and the kids get frustrated and cranky quickly. That’s because they’re being asked to cut in ways that they’re just not ready for yet.
If you really want your kids to strengthen fine motor skills and focus on a winter theme, then these fine motor cutting practice sheets are for you!
Winter Fine Motor Scissor Skills For Preschool
Do you have children that absolutely refuse to write their name when asked? Maybe they even throw tantrums and flat out tell you “No”? First of all, don’t panic – this isn’t the end of the world. Instead, think of these behaviors as a form of communication, what are the children trying to tell you with their behavior?
When children act out by saying “no!” and flat out refuse to do something, it can be a sign that they may not have the prerequisite skills in place to do what you’re asking of them. Instead, focus more on strengthening your student’s fine motor skills before asking them to write. One way to do this is by working on scissor skills with cutting activities.
What Do Scissor Skills Develop?
Teaching kids to cut with scissors allows them opportunities to develop strength in their little hands that will be required for writing later.
There are many educational benefits of cutting with scissors, here’s a list for you below.
- Independent movement of individual fingers in hands
- Strengthens small hand muscles (necessary for holding and grasping writing tools)
- Bilateral coordination skills (using both sides of the body at once)
- Hand-eye coordination
- Visual perceptual skills (directionality)
- Fine motor skills (opening and closing scissors)
- Increases focus and attention spans
Snowman Scissor Cutting Practice
If you haven’t introduced your little learners to scissors yet, play dough scissors are the perfect way to start. Another great resource for getting started with scissor introduction is this blog post, which explains how children learn to cut with scissors.
Check out this research-based, playful learning unit in our curriculum shop!
14 of my most popular winter theme resources, including math, literacy, and dramatic play! Make learning fun with these hands-on resources!
Scissor Skills Checklist
After you’ve introduced scissors to your students, and they can hold and are opening and closing the scissors on their own, you’re ready to get started.
First things first, you’ll need a copy of the scissor skills checklist included in the scissor skills bundle. This will give you a better understanding of the different developmental stages young children go through when learning how to use scissors.
How Do You Introduce Scissors To Preschoolers?
I’m about to drop some knowledge on you, so listen up! Contrary to popular opinion, you don’t just throw a bunch of scissor skill cutting practice pages on the table and let the kids have at them. Oh no my friend, there’s so much more to it than that.
I designed this bundle for the intentional teacher, those of you who want to really help meet your kids where they’re at and help them move on to the next level. If you’re a “throw the papers on the table and hope they choose the right ones” type of teacher then this probably isn’t for you.
The scissor skills bundle includes black and white pages for each of the different cutting skills, including this winter theme. Snipping is the first skill on the list, and it’s usually the easiest. But crumpling and ripping paper with their little hands actually come before the introduction of scissors.
After snipping, the skills increase slightly in difficulty from straight lines to curved lines, and then to simple shapes. On each printable there’s an image of a thumbs up to indicate where the child should hold the paper while they cut.
You can copy these fine motor practice cutting printables on colorful AstroBrights cardstock paper to make them visually appealing and distinguish each stage of cutting. You can also use whichever type of paper you prefer or have on hand. Or you can also use a permanent marker on construction paper to make your own practice pages. You can grab your copy of the scissor skills bundle HERE.