How To: Develop a child's beginner scissor skills

Shelley Lovett has some tips for helping a young child learn how to use scissors. The first thing you need to do is make sure you have paper and child size scissors available for the child to use. A full sheet cut in half is usually more manageable for a young child to work with. Have the child take the paper and just make cuts into the paper however they feel comfortable. Using colored paper can make it more interesting for them. After that very beginning practice stage has been accomplished, you can go to Childcareland to print papers that have big thick lines on them for children to practice cutting on the lines. The lines help guide their scissors, instead of just doing free cutting. You should start with shorter lines, and work up do being able to do longer ones. After they have mastered that stage, you can move on to shapes.