Fine Motor Preschool Activities - Scissors & Cutting Skills

Teaching preschoolers how to use scissors and is an ongoing task for us preschool teachers. This is one of my favorite fine motor preschool activities which allows time, fun, practice and "mess control" all in one activity.

This can be one of your centers in your classroom and four at a time is the maximum number of children I allow at any one time. Use this as a rotational activity with other similar ones.

Swimming Pool Cutting Center

One of the skills we are always working on is fine motor cutting with sissors.

You can buy a hard shell swimming pool for around 10$. It fits four students with lots of room to spare and it fits in the corner of the room nicely.

Fill it with old magazines and let them pick their favorite pictures to cut. They love being in the pool and all the mess is contained.

Be sure to make one of the rules--no standing!

Try this to allow them time to practice this necessary skill. They can simply enjoy the process and not have to worry about accuracy.

Let me know if you have any special ways you have of teaching this skill.

I will post them here for all of us to enjoy.


If you found these fine motor preschool activities helpful, check out the other ideas in the Preschool Planner.

http://www.preschoolplanner.com/thefullstory.html

Mary
marys.plans@gmail.com


PS: If you would like to receive my free newsletter for more ideas for your preschool class, enter your name and address at the site below:

http://preschoolplanner.com/preschool-activities.html

Easy Preschool Summer Crafts - Summer Fish, Mirror Images and Sculptures

I hope your summers are going well and the kids are having fun. I have a few easy preschool summer crafts to share with you.

Thanks to all my readers who are flooding me with wonderful ideas! Preschoolers love to have hands on crafts that produce immediate results they can share with their classmates and families.

Give these a try and enjoy! Please send in your ideas to share. I will post them here on the blog.

Giant Wall Fish!
Here is a summer idea for giant fish! I cut a master copy of a giant fish from tagboard and let the kids trace it onto another piece of tag board (paint paper works too) and let them decorate it. The face was painted on and a giant eye was glued on the painted face.

We then used watered down glue to "paint" the fins and covered them with glitter. Last but not least we used colored "post-its" (we hat pre-cut one side round and left the sticky side straight) as the scales. Each child has a unique fish to call their own!! We put them on our bulletin board with other sea creature and they look awesome!

Styrofoam Sculptures
Mary, I've done this idea for a few years now and some of the things my preschooler's like the best is pieces of styrofoam. I borrow golf tees left over from summer, and go through my junk drawers to find anything they can hammer or press into the packing material. I take duct tape and secure each edge and provide plastic hammers and let them go! They love it, they love the mess and they love their sculptures, they love pulling pieces in and out and rearranging. It's messy but it's preschool!

Mirror Image Paintings
Let children paint a picture, when they are finished, we put another piece of paper over painted picture and use a rolling pin over it. It creates a "mirror image". They always think this is very neat!

If you like this idea for easy preschool summer crafts, check out the other ideas in the Preschool Planner a try.


http://www.preschoolplanner.com/thefullstory.html


Mary
marys.plans@gmail.com


PS: If you would like to receive my free newsletter for more ideas for your preschool class, enter your name and address at the site below:

http://preschoolplanner.com/preschool-activities.html