How to Improve Cutting Skills with a Free Flower Printable
Do you want to help your child improve their cutting skills?
This free flower printable activity is a fun and interactive way to do just that. It’s the perfect activity to help kids improve their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and more. Plus it’s easy to set up!
Continue reading to learn more about improving cutting skills, and download your free flower printable activity at the bottom of this article!
What are cutting skills?
Cutting is an important skill for children to master. Cutting with scissors is a fine motor skill and a useful life skill and is necessary in order to complete certain projects at school or home. As kids move from preschool to kindergarten, they will find that cutting out shapes is often part of learning activities, craft activities, and other art projects.
How do Kids Develop Cutting Skills?
Kids develop the skills necessary to use scissors as they grow and mature. In general, kids follow these developmental stages as they learn to use scissors:
Snipping
Snips are short, quick cuts. Kids begin with little control by cutting random snips in paper. As they gain more control, kids can begin snipping on a line.
Cutting
Cutting begins when kids are able to move the scissors forward on the paper as they snip. Kids learn to hold the paper with one hand as they cut with the other.
As they become comfortable with moving the scissor forward as they cut, kids can begin cutting on (or near) straight lines. With practice, they can begin cutting curves, zig-zags, simple shapes, then more complex shapes.
How do You Practice Scissor Skills?
There are many ways to help your kids practice cutting skills. Here are a few simple ideas for cutting practice for your preschoolers:
- Add wrapping paper, magazine pages, toy catalog pages, etc. to a sensory bin
- snip straws, ribbons, etc. for craft projects
- add scissors to your playdough trays
A Scissor Skills Printable
Another way to help kids practice cutting skills is to plan engaging crafts like this flower activity.
This fun flower craft reminds me of the fields of Texas wildflowers…and the fine motor activity is a fun way for your kids to work on their fine scissor skills. To make this preschool craft idea easier for you, I made a cutting printable cutting template for you to use.
You’ll love this flower printable. It’s a fun way to work on cutting skills with preschoolers, and you can use it in any season!
Differentiated Cutting Activity
The printable includes two different versions of flower templates. Kids can cut out circular flowers and then cut out wedges around the circle to create the flower petals. One version has four flower petals while the other version will be slightly more difficult with more petals (8) to cut out.
Many kids will not be ready to cut out the circles. Help them out with that task and just ask them to cut straight lines to form the petals.
The four-petal version reminds me of a dogwood blossom.
The eight-petal version reminds me of a daisy or a Mexican hat.
The flowers look amazing when printed on brightly colored paper, but you can also print them on inexpensive white paper and add color with crayons or markers.
Encouraging Open-Ended Creation
Kids need to learn how to cut on lines, and this activity will provide them with an opportunity to practice this skill. You can also use the template as the starting point for a beautiful work of art. It’s easy to encourage open-ended creation while making flowers. Here are a bunch of ideas.
Cut Petals in Unique Ways
- clip off the corners of each petal
- create rounded corners on the petals
- cut fringe on the petals
- trim the petals to make them shorter
Make 3-D Flowers
- Fold the petals
- Curl the petals
- Stack flowers on top of one another
Add Additional Creative Materials
Give kids some blank sheets of paper, glue, and a variety of creative materials so that they can make an open-ended collage. Here are some fun material ideas:
- crayons, marker
- hole punches
- dot, shape, or bug stickers
- plastic bottle caps
- buttons
- pom-poms
- glitter glue
- sequins
- pipe cleaners
You can also use the flowers on bulletin boards and on blank books. I hope that your kids enjoy using these flower templates to improve their cutting skills.
Hopefully, they bring a little bit of spring into your life and I can’t wait to hear how you use them
Get Your Free Cutting Skills Practice Printable
The flowers look amazing when printed on brightly colored paper. They have me longing to see fields of Texas wildflowers…..Come on spring! Click on the link below, fill in the quick form, and I will send the cutting templates directly to your inbox.
Get More Fine Motor Resources in the Store
Are you looking for more fine motor and scissor skills activities for your kids. Check out these fun resources in the store.
Additional Activities to Practice Cutting Skills
You can also find more articles including cutting practice activity ideas on Early Learning Ideas.
