create (with kids): Holding Scissors

Happy Monday to you! Since we've chosen to not send Isia to preschool this year, I keep checking with my friends to see what their preschool-age kiddos are up to. Learning the ABC's, social skills, and scissors seem to be highest on the list right now. While we're moving along with the ABC's and meandering the rocky ground of three-year-old social civility, some moments better than others (ahem)- we haven't really focused on scissors yet. Oh, Isia has access to little plastic scissors for her play-doh, but I had never tried to show her how to properly hold them for maximum effectiveness. And as a teacher who never taught preschool, I was a little perplexed: How do you teach a child to hold scissors? 

At first I would hold the scissors myself, then I would model her hand in the same way: Thumb in the top, middle finger in the bottom, and index finger underneath the scissor joint. She would try, but her ring finger and pinky kept getting in the way. Solution? I folded a small piece of tissue paper to tuck underneath these fingers, and asked her to keep it from falling out. It worked!

And all of a sudden cutting ropes of play-doh became so much easier. 

We've employed the same technique while writing too, and it's helped her create a better grasp with whatever she's writing with. And a better grasp makes it so much easier to write. Now making silly faces? That's something that Mama has never had to help her with!