There are so many fun ways to use stickers for fine motor skill development.
Stickers can be used in scissoring to work on accuracy, scissor control, snipping paper, manipulating the paper to turn corners and curves when cutting. It can be really tricky for a kiddo to manage all of those areas if they have any fine motor/visual motor/eye-hand coordination…or any trouble area(s) that effects their ability to accurately maintain line awareness when cutting paper.
And for pre-schoolers, it can be really fun to use stickers in a cutting activity.
Anything that makes things different. Or silly.
It makes an activity Interesting!
We used some heart stickers in honor of Valentine’s Day…
(and also because we have millions of them)
to make some curves, squares, and angled lines…and to practice a little cutting!
This little bird stopped by to watch 🙂
What else can you do with stickers when practicing cutting…
~Cut along a line of stickers, like we did.
~Use a sticker only at the corners of an angled shape (the corners of a triangle) to signal when the child should turn the paper.
~Place stickers along the edge of the page, to show where the child should hold the paper with his “helping hand”, and signal when he should move his hand along. This would be a good guide for kids with trouble coordinating both hands when cutting.
~For the child who needs help knowing when to open/shut the scissors to snip with smooth cuts, place stickers along the line signaling when to open/shut the scissors. This can be a visual cue to assist the child.
~Using Fiscar scissors (or other scissors that have a smaller thumb opening): Sometimes kids will get mixed up about which opening their thumb goes in when they hold the scissors. If they are holding the scissors upside down because of this, it can lessen the control they have when they cut. Place a sticker on the scissors to they know which hole they should put their thumb into.
~Practice scissor control: Place stickers randomly around a page and have the child cut from the edge of the paper up to a sticker and then stop before they cut into the sticker.
This was an easy and fun little activity!
Colleen