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Scissor Tips for Kindergarten

Do you have students struggling to cut? The beginning of the year can be tricky with some kids who have never even held scissors! That’s why it’s essential to teach the proper scissor skills right from day one. Keep reading to find out all the scissor tips for kindergarten to make cutting tasks more successful for everyone. Then, you can focus on all the fun crafts for the rest of the year!

All the scissor tips for kindergarten to help students learn how to cut with ease at the beginning of the year!

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This article goes well with these Simply Kinder resources:

Why Should You Teach Scissor Skills?

Kindergarten is SO much fun! There’s coloring, learning to read, singing songs, writing, math, and ALL! THE! CRAFTS! But if you have to spend all your time cutting out everyone’s work, you never get to the fun stuff. Start off with scissor cutting tips and you’ll have more time for fun activities! These task boxes are a great place to start! They’re full of hands-on activities to engage students every day as they learn important concepts, like cutting skills.

Every month is full of task boxes that can be used for morning work, early finishers, small group intervention, centers, or anytime you want to add some fun activities to your day! Each kit has a huge variety of activities to pick from to practice fine motor skills, literacy, math and so much more. Click here to get it on SImply Kinder now! Or if you’re a Simply Kinder Plus member, you can download it instantly here!

Scissor Cutting Tip for Kindergarten

Tip #1: Cutting is a Thumbs Up Activity

One quick tip is to teach students that cutting is a thumbs-up activity! Help them remember by putting a smiley face on the top of the scissors. This shows them which hole to put their thumb in, so they have the proper hold and form. They will cut with ease all year with just a simple switch of their grip.

Check out this video to see the tip in action:

You can even draw a smiley; draw a heart, flower, star, or use any fun sticker! The idea is to draw the student’s eye to the place where their thumb should be.

Tip #2: Keep That Chicken Wing Down

Do you have students who are lifting their arms while they’re trying to cut? Keeping your arm down is essential to cut with ease, but it can be tricky for some of our students. Keep it fun for them by pretending to have chicken wings! Tell them they have to keep their chicken wing down while cutting. You can also have them put a piece of paper under their arm. This helps awareness of their arm placement and trains them to stay down. As an added bonus, it’s a great whole group lesson to build muscle memory!

Check it out:

These activities will keep your students laughing, but more importantly, serves as a reminder to keep those chicken wing arms down!

Teacher Tip #3: Build Muscle Strength

Are your students struggling with muscle strength while they are cutting? Those tiny muscles in their palms need a lot of work too before they’ll be able to cut with ease. So here are some scissor tips for teachers to build muscle strength up!

  • Start by cutting play-dough! It’s soft but not as flimsy as paper.
  • Then, move on to a paper plate. It gives a little more resistance but is still sturdy for a beginner.
  • Construction paper is a great next step! A little thicker than regular paper but has the same concept.
  • Now, they’re ready for regular paper!

Students will be cutting with ease in no time as they build up all those muscles and strength in their hands.

Tip #4: CHOMP!

Let’s make it easy to teach littles how to cut with fun small activities! A big part of scissor tips for kindergarten is to make it FUN! Try using the word, “chomp!” Hold the scissors correctly (refer back to tip #1) and CHOMP CHOMP CHOMP the paper as we open and close them. Once they’re ready for paper, they will push the scissors forward and pull the paper back towards themselves as they curve and twist the paper to cut where intended.

Scissor Success!

Give your students the directions they need to understand how cutting works to build success! Above all, make it fun. Your students will learn quicker and enjoy doing all the activities designed to help them cut with ease.

Do you have more scissor cutting tips for kindergarten to share? Join the conversation inside the Simply Kinder Teachers Facebook Group here!

All the scissor tips for kindergarten to help students learn how to cut with ease at the beginning of the year!

This post was written by Johanna, an experienced early elementary teacher who loves learning about new teaching ideas for preschool, kindergarten, and first grade!

At Simply Kinder we work together to bring you ready-to-use resources to partner with great teaching for any curriculum, a Facebook community where teachers talk all things Kindergarten, and low-prep learning ideas that your students will love. Be sure to stay up to date with all things kindergarten on InstagramFacebookPinterest, and through email. Simply Kinder: where teaching Kinder is definitely better together!

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