Lawton Scissorhands

I actually have never seen the movie "Edward Scissorhands", so this might be a derogatory reference to my child. If so, I plead ignorance! (which may not be a stretch for most of you to think that about me. . . hee, hee!) But hey, I needed a catchy title and "Cutting" wasn't very fun, okay? But, that's what we're doing today. Cutting.

Here's what you need: scissors (surprise, surprise!) and paper. Oh, and a marker or some type of writing utensil.

Here's why you should do it: Everyone needs to know how to cut. Your child's preschool or kindergarten teacher will love you too, if your child is proficient at cutting before they get to the classroom and all other nine children want the teacher to "hold the paper" for them. Not that my child would do that, ahem. (I really have tried, Miss Donitta, to teach my child to cut for a long, long time. However, cutting and doing any type of art isn't at the top of his list and doesn't have much attention span for it. Please forgive me.) Seriously, though, this will help build concentration and work on those all important fine motor skills.

First, you need to cut strips of paper (I used my handy dandy paper cutter that I use for scrapbooking). I also used some scraps of cardstock because the stiffness is helpful for them to hold their own paper and cut. You can use whatever paper you have on hand, though. (of course!) Here I have the total progression of patterns from easiest to hardest. If your kiddo is just starting out, you might be cutting something like the first two strips for weeks. As they get more skills, they can start turning corners and curves.

Some of these can get tricky. . . I'm sure though that there is some little girl who is a year and a half younger than Lawton that loves to do art all day long that can breeze right through all these activities.

These shapes can be fun for the more proficient cutter.

Cutting straight lines takes some major concentration! :) And yes, he did hold his own paper today! Yes!

Oops! Missed that line a few times!

There! Got it!

Moving on . . .

Here's a shot of the fun shape - that I did. He probably can do it - but he got tuckered out today. Poor guy had to stay home from school with a fever and cough.

You can trash the scraps or you could keep them and make a neat collage or something. Too bad we didn't get around to making enough scraps . . .