Easy Pre-Scissor Activities

As a parent, I find it helpful to understand where my child is developmentally so I can help them improve the skills they are working on.  It also helps my frame of mind.  If I know that an otherwise annoying behavior is my daughter working toward a new skill, we stop butting heads and I find a constructive outlet for her to practice her new skill.

One of the skills that can be particularly destructive while children work on it learning is to use scissors.  It starts with ripping paper and often continues along a messy and destructive vein.

This post will cover several pre-scissor skills and how to set up constructive activities that are low prep and low mess so your little one can work on hand strength and coordination without driving you up a wall.

Hand Strength

Using scissors requires the hand strength to squeeze the handles of the scissors so they slice through the paper.  There are a ton of fun activities to build hand and grip strength.

Kneading dough

Playing with dough builds hand strength and dexterity. Rolling out the dough practices bilateral movement (having both sides of the body doing the same thing) and arm strength.  

Playdough or kinetic sand are great ways for kids to practice these motions, but I would also recommend they cook with you in the kitchen to get a practical view of those skills.  They could knead dough, stir, or mash potatoes to work on these same skills.

Squeezing

Any activity that requires them to squeeze something will build grip strength.  That could be squeezing a ketchup bottle over some french fries, or squeezing a stress ball to see how it feels.

Encourage your child to squeeze bath toys in the bath, or make a game where they squeeze an empty bottle to move a pom-pom around the house.

Spray Bottles

Using a spray bottle to mist water at things really works on grip strength and sets children up for the motion of opening and closing scissors.  Spray bottles can be messy if used without supervision, so create spaces where a spray bottle might be used with little to no mess.

Try giving the child an air plant or other houseplant that needs to be sprayed with water to care for.  They will get to spray the plant with water multiple times a week.  You could also let them spray concrete or fencing outside to see how colors change when they are wet.

Older kids could be given a spray bottle with a cleaning solution for them to spray at surfaces and then wipe up (vinegar and water are great for this). 

Hole Punches

A single hole punch or decorative hole punch is great for building hand strength and seeing how paper can be cut. Squeezing a hole punch with handles also mimics the motion your hand makes while using scissors which prepares kids for making that motion on their own.

Get some decorative hole punches and make confetti with them out of colorful paper.  

Ripping Paper

Ripping paper builds hand strength while reinforcing the idea that paper can be cut.  It is a very important developmental milestone.

Have paper available that is appropriate to tear in this phase.  Old magazines and newspapers from a certain spot (like the recycle pile) or colorful construction paper for crafts are great options.  

Consider having an activity where the child rips up a pile of colorful paper and then glues it to a paper to make a stained glass window.  Another way to minimize the mess is to teach your child to throw out the ripped papers when they are done.

Dexterity

Building hand strength isn’t quite enough to make scissors work, you also have to work on the open-squeeze-close motion you need to use scissors.  Any activity where the child has to use their pincher grasp will help build these skills. 

Tweezers

Use tweezers to pick up pom-poms, beans, pieces of string, or anything else you have lying around.  You can use the tweezers to sort items, move them from one bowl or to another, or post them (drop them through a tube).

Chopsticks

Training chopsticks help children practice the open-close motion that goes along with using scissors.  They are a bigger version of tweezers.  Consider practicing eating with them, or moving small objects.  

When children get good at the fixed, tong-like chopsticks, consider upgrading to one with a hinge.  The hinge makes them practice opening their hand as well as closing it to grab something.  Tweezers and the fixed chopsticks will only reinforce the squeezing motion while providing support for them to open their hands.

Painting/ coloring with small implements

Pom-poms, q-tips, cotton balls, and toothpicks all make great painting implements.  When it is time to paint, consider using some found objects as paintbrushes.  Holding and manipulating the smaller objects through the paint will help increase your child’s dexterity.

Stickers and Tape

Next time you have to peel a sticker off a paper, pay attention to what your fingers are doing.

You have to bend the paper enough for the sticker to release, but not so much that you accidentally fold the sticker.  Then you have to carefully grab the part of the sticker that popped up and peel it off the paper.  

To stick it on something you have to use your thumb to stick half of the sticker on the paper and then hold it there while you unstick your finger.

All of that is extremely tricky for tiny fingers.  So take some time and play with stickers.  Use tape on projects and let them do it.  Their tiny hands get quite the workout from it.  

Puppets

Operating a puppet’s mouth not only helps with that open-close motion, but also helps with coordination.  To make the puppet “talk” you have to match your hand to what you are saying.  That skill can be tricky for young children.  Syncing hand and mouth motions increase body awareness and dexterity at the same time.

Pre-scissor skills don’t have to be messy or annoying.

Understanding what your child is trying to learn and providing activities to reinforce those skills can benefit everyone in the family.  Watch what your child is interested in doing and then provide opportunities for them to practice that won’t drive you crazy.

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