There are many basic tasks that children can usually find difficult to learn when improving their fine motor skills. Hold a pencil, tie their shoes, and put on their own jacketFor example, all the skills we help them master are with practice and patience. However, when it comes to wielding scissors, we may prefer to make them as competent as possible ASAP.
Holding scissors properly is not intuitive for young children. They twist their hands and wrists at awkward angles and attack the construction paper in a way that chops it instead of cutting it. But Susie Allison at Busy Toddler have a simple trick for thatand all you need is a marker or a small sticker:
Use the marker or sticker to mark the thumb of your dominant hand. How Allison writes::
Draw a smiley face with a marker (permanent washing is fine) and ask your child to “keep the smiley face open”. This helps make a REALLY abstract idea super concrete: kids can instantly “see” what needs to be done in order to cut more successfully.
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Eventually, if they’re not practicing with scissors at home, children will learn the correct scissor techniques in preschool or kindergarten. But using this trick with them during the preschool years can give them a head start so they are better prepared for all of those school art projects.
