Basic Cutting Activities
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These easy cutting activities are designed to give your child lots of practice in mastering scissor cutting.
They are designed for children who have already learned to use scissors but need lots of practice to cut on lines and to cut out shapes.
Make sure your child is cutting with an appropriate scissor grasp, and preferably on paper that is about double regular thickness.
Use my free cutting template at the end of this page to print out the lines and shapes you need!
- Straight Line Cutting Activities
- Cutting Circles and Spirals
- Cutting Simple Shapes
- More Advanced Cutting
- Free Cutting Template Download
- Help! My child can't cut with scissors yet
Straight Line Cutting Activities
Be creative and give your child lots and lots of practice cutting on thick straight lines.
Use the straight lines on the free template to carry out these activities.
Staple or tape the lines together to make a good old-fashioned paper chain, or a paper flower.
Or try a paper lantern or simple paper decorations.
The templates for these two activities can be find in my Christmas Scissor Cutting E-Book.
Cutting Circles And Spirals
Use the circles and lines in your free template to make the spider and the caterpillar.
Spider Cutting Activity
Add a circle to 8 lines.
Stick or staple them together to make a spider.
Add some string to the middle to make a dangly spider.
Caterpillar Cutting Activity
Cut 5 or 6 circles and stick them together to make a caterpillar.
Stick the "head" circle a little higher than the rest and give it a smiley face. Add pipe cleaner feelers.
Add little pipe cleaner legs to the first segment ( I folded 3 short
sections in half and pushed them through three little holes).
Spiral Snakes
Spiral snakes are so much fun!
You can draw a spiral on a paper plate, or use a free download from here (opens in new window).
Please note: for a left handed child, the spiral needs to go the other way!
How to make a "leftie" snake: Stick the "right hand" snake to a window (so you can see the outline through the paper) and trace the outline on the back of the paper to get a snake with the spiral going the other way.
When you give it to your left handed child, make sure he/she cuts out the spiral on the BACK of the paper.
OR - much easier - download my Cutting Templates E-Book, and use the Spiral Snakes in there - I provide both left and right spiral snakes, as well as thicker and thinner line options.
Cutting Simple Shapes
Use the free cutting template to cut out triangles and squares.
Then try these creations!
Build a house!
Create a Rocket!
Make a Fir Tree!Awesome Cutting Practice Printables!
Does your child need more scissor cutting practice? Are you struggling to find good scissor cutting templates?
OT Mom’s compilation of fun cutting templates will give your child lots of cutting practice with lovely end products to build your child’s confidence!
Suitable for a range of skills - from preschoolers who are just learning to use scissors, all the way to early elementary kids who need more practice with their scissor skills.
There are 19 different scissor cutting crafts, all with photographed instructions and a variety of templates - over 50 templates in all!
Starting with simple snipping activities, the templates will enable your child to learn to cut on straight lines and then to cut out shapes. All the activities are photographed so you and your child can see what you are working towards!
More Advanced Cutting
Once your child has mastered going around the external corners of squares and triangles, then he/she will need to practice manipulating the scissors around internal
corners (such as hearts and stars).
Cutting out smaller pieces and/or on a thinner line is also challenging, as it requires more careful control of the scissors.
Ask your child to cut out groceries from a supermarket flyer to make a shopping list!
Look for activities with thinner lines, on
normal-thickness paper, and with "interesting" angles and corners. I link to some in my "related pages" section below.
You can also try these simple kirigami ideas with older kids! (opens to a different site in a new window)
Free Cutting Template
My free PDF download contains printable cutting templates for thick straight lines, circles, squares, triangles and a house cutting activity.
This basic cutting template will enable your child to create the activities suggested on this page!
Check the boxes below to unlock access to your freebie - no need to give away your email address or sign up for anything!
For more scissor cutting practice, check out these additional cutting templates on my site.
These activities are more advanced and contain a greater range of cutting activities than the free download above.
These printable e-book downloads will make it easy for you to access cutting activities whenever you need them!
My Child Can't Cut With Scissors Yet
If your child hasn't developed a good grasp-release motion on the scissors yet, or if you have no idea where to start teaching your child to cut with scissors, then these pages on my site may help...
Help Your Child Master Scissor Cutting
Is your child struggling to cut neatly with scissors?
Do you want to teach your preschooler how to cut with scissors but don't know where to start?
My 33 page scissor skills e-book will help answer your questions, and will give you step by step photographed activities to help your child master scissor skills.
Thank you for visiting my site! I hope you found these cutting activities useful for your child!
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