Snip, Snip: Mastering Scissor Skills
You’ve all requested it, and now I finally have a space to share it in detail. I want to talk about an essential milestone in a child's life: learning to use scissors. It may seem like a simple skill, but it actually involves a complex developmental journey for children starting somewhere around 18 months and continuing through kindergarten. So, let's dive in and explore the stages and some handy tips to help your learners master scissor skills.
Exploring Scissors (18-24 months*)
At this age, introduce child-safe scissors with blunt or round tips that are sized for small, toddler hands. Our favorite scissors when we first began were Toddler Loop Scissors. These scissors were made for tiny hands to use all their fingers to push close and automatically reopen. These were perfect for beginning snipping or just slashing at a piece of paper. During this stage, the goal is not to actually be cutting in any predetermined way, but rather fostering a positive association with scissors and learning that they are for making cuts. Our favorite ways to practice cutting at this age were to cut playdough, snip up paper, and cut up fallen leaves.
Basic Cutting (2-3 years*)
During this stage, children begin to understand the concept of cutting. They might experiment with random snips and simple straight lines. Provide them with large, easy-to-cut materials like thick paper or craft foam. Draw bold lines or shapes for them to cut along, encouraging them to follow the lines if possible. The Toddler Loop Scissors will still be a great tool during this time, but you could also begin to transition to a more traditional scissor shape. If you choose to try traditional scissor shapes, consider getting a pair of Spring Loaded Scissors. These scissors function similarly to loop scissors in the sense that children will push them closed, but the spring inside will automatically reopen them. You may choose to assist in this task by sitting across from the child and holding the paper taut as they cut. Cutting with one hand and using their helper hand to steady and guide at this age/stage may not be appropriate for all children. One of our favorite ways to practice snipping is this Yarn Snipping material from @birchstreetgoods.
Cutting a Straight Line (3-4 years*)
Around this age, children start to develop better hand-eye coordination and control. They can now focus on cutting straight lines more accurately. As they begin to practice cutting on the line, first start with strips of paper with dashed lines that will allow the child to snip small squares. This doesn’t require scissors to reopen, but rather introduces the concept of staying on a line. Once they are managing to cut on a line, then you can present a longer strip with a straight dashed line to cut along. In the beginning, integrating the helping hand that holds the paper as the other cuts will be difficult. One way to introduce this is to tape the end of the paper being cut to the edge of a table and have the child hold the bottom of the paper as they cut up the line. This allows them to learn how to close, open, and scoot the scissors as they travel down the line cutting. As they become proficient with the close, open and scoot, untape the paper and model how to move the helping hand up the paper as the cut bringing the paper towards the scissors rather than moving the scissors up the paper. At this stage we introduced straight line cutting with our Beginning Cutting and Scissor Skills pack.
Curves and Shapes (4-5 years*)
As their fine motor skills improve, children can now tackle more challenging cutting pathways involving curved lines, zig zag lines, corners, and basic shapes. Provide them with strips with a variety of line shapes and/or templates of circles, squares, and triangles. Encourage them to cut out these shapes along the lines. Remind them to turn the paper, not the scissors, while cutting along curves or when they get to a corner. I often will tell students to rest their cutting arm on the edge of the table to help them keep the scissors in one place and maneuver the paper as they cut rather than hooking their wrist around a curved or cornered line. At this stage you should also make sure students are being introduced to traditional child-sized scissors, and if they are left-hand dominant to make sure they have left handed scissors available for use. At this stage we introduced complex line cutting with our Beginning Cutting and Scissor Skills pack.
Complex Cutting (5-6 years*)
At this stage, children are ready for more intricate cutting tasks. Cutting that is a part of a learning task such as a cut and glue sorting worksheet, cutting spades to make a picture, cutting around pictures that don’t have pre drawn lines, etc. Students will begin refining their scissor skills by altering the length of their snips. Rather than opening and closing the scissors fully each time, they will begin to figure out how to open and close slightly for smaller snips and fully for longer cuts.
Tips for all stages of scissor use:
Even in the scissor exploring stage, emphasize the importance of how scissors are held and the orientation of their hand. When using loop scissors, thumb on top and remaining finders on bottom. Using traditionally shaped scissors, thumb in small top opening and remaining fingers tucked into larger bottom opening.
Thumb to the Sun is my go-to phrase for reminding students that they need to cut with their thumbs on top. It is very common for children to flip their scissors upside down and cut with their thumbs facing down and remaining fingers on the top, but we want to correct that hand placement when we see it. Thumb to the Sun is a simple rhyme that also makes sense to young children and redirects a whole group rather than calling out a single child and telling them their hand is upside down.
If a child still struggles with keeping their thumb up to the sky, put a small sticker on their thumbnail or use a marker to draw a smiley face just below their thumbnail. Reminding them to keep their thumb happy. If they can’t see the smiley face then their hand is facing the wrong direction.
Learning to use scissors is a big deal, but remember it takes TIME, PRACTICE, SCAFFOLDING, and ADULT PATIENCE. Don’t rush the process. *Children all develop at their own pace and will travel through these developmental scissor stages as slowly or quickly as they are ready to. All ages are approximate and generalized. If you are looking for additional scissor practice sheets, check out my Beginning Scissor Skills printables.
Happy Snipping,
Mikaela
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