We live in an area with cold winters and lots of snow. With the wintery weather comes ice, salt, and snow plows. We’ve been watching many salt trucks rumble down our road, scattering salt and plowing snow. My kids love to see the salt truck come and every time the see one when we’re out and about, they shout, “SNOW PLOW” from the back of the minivan. We had to make an Easy Shapes Salt Truck craft to join our other truck crafts.
Other trucks and cars crafts that work on scissor skills with simple geomteric shapes include:
Craft for Scissor Skills
If working on scissor skills is a must, then this salt truck craft is the way to go. Kiddos that love all things trucks and vehicles will love it for the vehicle theme, but as a therapist, I see the geometric shapes, making it perfect for working on early scissor skills.
Salt Truck Craft
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To make the craft, you’ll need just a few materials:
- Scissors
- Yellow paper
- Red paper
- Black paper
- White paper
- Green paper
- Glue
Other colors of paper can certainly be used! These are the colors we used, and I’ll describe the shapes you need for this truck craft here so you can use the salt truck as a template.
About paper type- Different types of paper provides different amounts of feedback for young scissor users. We love crafting with card stock or thicker paper, because it’s easy to hold with the assisting hand and the paper doesn’t easily bend or move when cutting through it with scissors. Cardstock paper is great for younger kids or those just learning to snip and cut with smooth lines as well as just starting with turning the scissors around a corner of simple shapes.. Its brightly colors make great crafting material and the thickness is perfect for new scissor users. You can find more information on types of paper for scissor skill development in our scissor skills crash course.
You’ll need to draw the following shapes:
- Yellow Rectangle- for the body of the truck
- Yellow Square- for the cab of the truck
- White Smaller Square- for the window of the truck
- Large Green triangle- for the truck’s Salt bed
- Long Green rectangle- for the top of the salt truck’s bed
- 2 Black larger circles- for the wheels
- 2 Smaller white circles- for inside the wheels
- Red Half Circle- for the plow
- Small Red Square- for the plow attachment
Draw the shapes onto the paper and then start cutting. Cut shapes as pictured above to build the salt truck craft.
Snow Plow Puzzle
Constructing this snow plow puzzle is part of the fun! Kids can work on visual memory by building the truck from memory or by looking at an example picture and then back to their project.
You can build the salt truck with them and then deconstruct the truck. Ask your child to recreate the truck from memory, using their mind’s eye to recall the placement of the shapes. This memory is visual memory and an important skill for copying work when handwriting.
There are other visual perceptual skills at work, too.
Looking for specific pieces that are placed on the table surface is a challenge in visual scanning, visual discrimination, figure-ground, and form constancy.
Remembering the position of the shapes is part of visual discrimination, a skill needed when children need to remember subtle differences in a picture or written work. Difficulty with visual discrimination will be apparent when a child has difficulty discerning between b, d, p, or q.
Early scissor skills fine motor
For more ways to work on scissor skills, along with all of the fine motor skills needed for scissor use and handwriting, try the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s loaded with cutting activities, lacing cards, coloring, clip activities, fine motor art, and fun ways to help children develop pre-writing hand strength, dexterity, and motor skills.
Use the fine motor activities, lacing cards, toothpick art, and crafts in the Winter Fine Motor Kit. It’s a 100 page packet with all winter themes, and you’ll find penguins there!
Click here for more information on the Winter Fine Motor Kit.
Colleen Beck, OTR/L has been an occupational therapist since 2000, working in school-based, hand therapy, outpatient peds, EI, and SNF. Colleen created The OT Toolbox to inspire therapists, teachers, and parents with easy and fun tools to help children thrive. Read her story about going from an OT making $3/hour (after paying for kids’ childcare) to a full-time OT resource creator for millions of readers. Want to collaborate? Send an email to contact@theottoolbox.com.
