Why It Is Important to Teach Your Children to use Scissors (Cutting Is Not Busywork!)

When you are thinking of activities for you preschoolers through kindergarteners, do you ever consider scissor cutting activities? Or, do you dismiss it as busywork? If you are dismissing scissor skills, I encourage you to reconsider. Honestly, the first thing that drew me to scissor activities was that children seem to enjoy it so much! But, lets consider the benefits of scissor activities.

Fine Motor Strength

When using scissors, the opening and closing of the scissors builds the muscles in the hands. The muscles are important for school and educational activities such as writing, turning pages, circling, coloring, cutting and paste-type activities, and using keyboards. But, fine motor skills are are also used for life skills such as eating, buttoning clothes, brushing teeth, tying shoelaces, video-gaming, playing musical instruments, and more.

Increases Focus

Cutting on lines requires focus and attention to detail. These are skills required not just in schoolwork, but in sports, playing instruments, and even to avoid injury in life. Concentration and attention to detail is also useful in many careers.

Helps Determine Hand Dominance

While some children start to develop hand dominance between age 2 and 4, while some children take until age 6. When I taught first grade, I even saw a couple that struggled with it at age 7. Using the hands to manipulate small things, such as scissor, helps the child learn which hand feels more comfortable and able to accomplish various tasks, including writing.

Helps Develop Hand-Eye Coordination

The coordinated control of eye movement with hand movement is important. Cutting with scissors on lines helps to strengthen these skills because the hands and eyes must move in unison. Hand-eye coordination is needed for handwriting, zipping a coat, pouring, sports, visual arts, driving a car, and careers such as surgeon.

Helps With Bilateral Coordination

Bilateral coordination is the ability to use both sides of the body at the same time. Scissor cutting helps with this, also, because it requires the cutter to hold the item being cut in one hand while operating the scissors in the other hand. Bilateral coordination is important for skills such as walking, catching, and riding a bike.

If you teach a preschooler, pre-K, or kindergartner at home, or if you are a classroom teacher of these little learners, be sure to give them lots of opportunities to use scissors. The benefits will last a lifetime.

Here's One Thing I Do For Scissor Practice

I am big on customizing activities as much as I can for individual students. Adding themed cutting strips is a quick and easy way to address both students' individual interests and add to class themes. Since I was not able to quickly find what I wanted, I started making my own. I've uploaded several of my cutting strips to my Paisley Schoolhouse Online Store. It's best to begin with cutting strips because it is best to start with cutting straight lines. After the materials have been cut apart, they make great pieces for sorting and making collages. You can check out some of the cutting strips in my store by clicking on the photo below.