Cutting - Page 16 of 17

Lunch Box

Let the child pick a color of construction paper (paper size should be A4).

Draw a line in the middle of the construction paper and ask the child to fold the paper accurately on the line. This works on his fine manual control skills.

On a separate construction paper, draw 2 handle shapes and ask the child to cut it along the lines. These handle shapes will be used as the lunch box handles.

Ask the child to glue the handles to the top ends of the folded paper (the child should be able to open/close the folded paper as a lunch bag).

Have the child draw what they had or brought for lunch on the inside of the folded construction paper or have the child cut and glue pictures of food items from newspapers/magazines.

Allow the child to decorate the outside “lunch box” using the crayons, markers, and colored pencils.

Paper Turkey

On a brown construction paper, trace the child’s hand or have the child trace his own hand using the pen/markers/crayons.

Make sure the thumb is extended and the fingers are spread apart while tracing the hand.

Let the child cut the traced hand. This will be the turkey’s body.

Glue the traced hand in the middle of the paper plate.

Use one bean as the turkey’s eye and glue it on the traced thumb. On the rest of the fingers, let the child glue feathers.

Take a piece of orange or red tissue paper and let the child crumble it. Glue the crumbled piece as the turkey’s wattle.

Using the markers or the crayon, let the child draw the turkey’s legs.

Finger Twister

Use scissors, markers and paper to create a miniature “twister” board (3-4 rows of 3 colored dots).

Instruct the child on which finger to put on which colors (ex: pointer finger on blue dot, pinkie finger on green dot).

Having child make their own board to take home can address cutting, coloring and visual motor skills.

You can modify the activity for grading to incorporate many other skills you are working on (ex: have child draw different shapes instead of just colored circles, or use letters instead of circles)

Big Tac Toe

A 6-year-old child lying on his belly plays a large tic-tac-toe game on a living room floor using masking tape and construction paper shapes.

Help the child cut 4 equal pieces of masking tape. Each piece should be about 3 feet long.

Use the masking tape pieces to make a large tic tac toe board on the floor.

Use the construction paper to cut shapes (each player should have his own shape). You will need 5 pieces of each shape. Let the child help you with a cutting of the shapes.

If working on writing skills, each player can write his name on his shapes.

Instruct the child to lay prone next to the tic tac toe board.

Using the pieces you cut, play the tic tac toe game by placing the pieces while keeping your body prone and reaching with your arms out to place the pieces on the board (i.e. crossing midline).

For grading: instead of writing your name on each shape, you can write your initials or any other word as appropriate.

Sunflower Handprint

Let the child cut the following pieces:
– 4-inch circle out of brown or black construction paper
– Stem (12-inch by 3-inch rectangle) and leaves out of green construction paper.

Use a large construction paper as the background and glue the stem from the bottom up. Glue the leaves to the stem.

Paint the child’s palms with yellow paint and instruct him to print his palms on the top part of the paper to form the flower petals.

Glue the 4-inch brown/black circle in the middle of the palm prints.