Fun Cutting Activities

It is so easy to create fun cutting activities for your kids! This page contains a free cutting template download with simple shapes to cut out, and lots of photographed ideas to help your child master scissor skills.

This is part three of my three-part series in helping preschoolers master scissor cutting skills!

Make sure your child is cutting with an appropriate scissor grasp, and preferably on paper that is about double regular thickness.

simple cutting activities to practice cutting skills

Straight Line Cutting Activities 

Be creative and give your child lots and lots of practice cutting on thick straight lines.

Staple or tape the lines together to make a good old-fashioned paper chain, or a paper flower.

I offer a variety of thick and thinner lines in my printable Cutting Templates pack.

simple cutting activity - make paper chainsMake some paper chains
cut out lines to make a flowerSome creative stapling will make a flower!

Or try a paper lantern or simple paper decorations.These make great holiday decorations!

The templates and instructions for the two activities shown below can be find in my Christmas Scissor Cutting Pack.

cut on lines to make paper lanternsPaper lanterns
cut on lines to make paper decorationsPaper decorations for kids

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Cutting Circles And Spirals

Cutting out circles helps your child learn to use both hands together to get the scissors to cut around the shape.

Use a variety of lines and circles to make the spider and the caterpillar shown below.

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.
cut lines and a circle to make a spiderHave your child cut 8 straight lines and a circle
make a paper spider with lines and circlesA paper 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 cleaners (chenille sticks) for antennae/feelers.
cutting out circlesCutting circles
make a very hungry caterpillar with cut out paper circlesThe finished caterpillar!
  • You can also add little pipe cleaner legs to the first segment - I folded 3 short sections of pipe cleaners 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.
  • Please note: for a left handed child, the spiral needs to go the "other" way!
cutting out a spiral snake for a preschool cutting activityCutting out a spiral snake

 My Cutting Printables Pack provides you with spiral snakes for both left handed and right handed children. There are also thicker and thinner line options, to cater for novice and more experienced scissor cutters.

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Cutting Simple Shapes

Draw some simple triangles and squares for your child to cut.

I like to cut the page in half, with one shape on each page, to make it more manageable for little hands.

cutting out a square to practice cutting around cornersCutting out a square
cutting out a triangle to practice cutting around cornersCutting out a triangle

Now try some of these ideas below!

cut a square and a triangle to make a houseBuild a house!
Use a square and a triangle and lots of lines to make a rocketCreate a Rocket!
cut three triangles and stick them together to make a treeMake a Fir Tree!

My full compilation of fun cutting templates will give your child lots of cutting practice with lovely end products to build your child’s confidence!

With this printable pack, you get LOTS of templates, plus full photographed instructions for each activity! 19 different scissor cutting crafts, with a variety of templates - over 50 templates in all!

lots of fun cutting activity printablesSome of the different printables contained in the pack!

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!

View my Fun Cutting Practice E-Book now!

fun scissor cutting templates to download and print

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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 heart shapes is more trickyCutting the internal corners on a heart shape

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!

cutting activity idea: cut out food pictures to make a shopping listcutting out food pictures to make a shopping list

Look for activities with thinner lines, on normal-thickness paper, and with "interesting" angles and corners.

There are some lovely cutting resources from Your Therapy Source on this page that are perfect for older kids who need more cutting practice.

You can also try these simple kirigami ideas with older kids!
(opens to a different site in a new window)

scissor cutting resources for early elementaryScissor cutting printables for slightly older kids

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Help! 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...

learning to use scissorsPart 1: Learning To Use Scissors
learning to cut along the linePart 2: Learning To Cut Along The Line
how to hold scissors correctly - the correct scissor graspHow To Hold Scissors Correctly
do left handed kids really need left handed scissors?What About Lefties?


I am so glad you found this page - thanks for visiting! I hope you found these cutting activities useful for your child!

If you need an accessible, printable resource to help your child master scissor cutting, then I really recommend my Scissor Cutting Combo deal - you will get an e-book packed with photographed instructions, tips and activities to help your child master scissor cutting, PLUS an e-book full of a variety of graded scissor cutting practice sheets (with photographed instructions) to help your child create fun projects while cutting out!

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Get Your OT Mom Free Printable!

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This free PDF download contains printable templates to give your child practice in cutting along the line and cutting out shapes. There are thick straight lines, circles, squares, triangles and also a house cutting activity.

These free cutting worksheets will enable your child to create the activities suggested on this page! Please note that only the printable cutting templates are included - the photos and instructions are on this page.

However, if you get my Cutting Printables Pack, you will get get the printable templates as well as photographed instructions for over 15 different scissor cutting activities, in addition to the ones on this page.

scissor cutting printables to practice cutting skillsFree Cutting Templates Download!

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