Icicle Winter Scissor Skills Activity

This paper icicle craft is a fun one for wintertime occupational therapy activities. If you are working on Scissor skills, cutting icicles into paper is a great fine motor task that builds eye-hand coordination, crossing midline, and visual motor skills to cut basic shapes. Be sure to add this paper icicle template for more tools for your winter occupational therapy toolbox.

Paper Icicle Craft

Do you have a little one who is just learning to master scissors?  Scissor Skills for children who have never picked up a pair of scissors before can be very daunting.  Frustrations can build and the next thing you know, your little sweetheart is spiking the scissors across the table!  

Kids learn all things at different paces.  Every developmental milestone and functional activity are achieved at different paces. 

Scissor use is no different.  Kids as young as two can start to snip paper (and probably with an awkward-two handed grasp on the scissors!)  And as their fine motor skills develop, will achieve more and more accuracy with scissor use.   

This winter themed Icicle cutting activity is a great beginner project for new scissor users.  The strait cuts, bold lines, and even paper type are good modifications for a new little scissor-hands!  

Winter Icicle Craft

Preschoolers are just beginning to gain more control over scissors.  Preschool activities like this icicle craft at the way to go when it comes to building motor skills.

Strait lines are the perfect way to gain confidence when they are learning to cut…and ensure that they’ll want to pick up the scissors and try another craft again soon!  We started out with nice strait lines on these icicles.  Little Guy could cut the whole way across the page without needing to rotate the page to cut a curve or angle.

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How to Modify this Icicle Craft

The smallest icicle could have been a harder task for him to cut, if he turned the whole page around like he started out doing. 

We used a few different strategies to scaffold this paper icicle craft:

• Cut through the page instead of turning around corners
• Adjust the paper weight to a thicker resistance
• Thicker cutting lines
• Trials with thinner lines to carryover the task with practice
• Verbal and visual cues

I prompted him to start one line from the edge of the paper and then instead of rotating the whole page (which would have probably given him a big chopped off icicle point), I showed him how to start the other side from the edge as well.  He was much more accurate with the lines and wanted to keep going!

We had two different types of paper for our icicles.  The first set was drawn on a sheet of white cardstock. 

Cutting from this thicker paper is a great beginning step for new scissor users and a modification often used for kids with fine motor difficulties. 

The thicker paper requires slower snips and allows for more accuracy.  I also drew the icicles on the cardstock with nice thick lines.  This gave Little Guy more room to cut within the lines and allowed for less line deviation. 

The second set of icicles were drawn with thinner lines on printer paper.  After practicing on the first set, he was game to cut more  icicles.  The thinner paper and lines requires more control of the scissors and better line awareness, and bilateral hand coordination.

  This looked like so much fun, that even Big Sister wanted to get in on the icicle-making action!

More paper crafts for winter

You’ll love these other cut and paste crafts for winter. Use them in winter fine motor ideas for occupational therapy activities

• Winter crafts using paper and a variety of textures for sensory play, motor planning, and motor skills.
• Paper Icicle Craft is an actual printable template that you can print off and use to work on the scissor skills we covered in this post. It’s a great way to make an icicle craft.
• Build a Snowman Craft– Work on scissor skills and fine motor strength to build a paper snowman
• Use these paper snowflake ideas from our list of snow and ice ideas.
• Use activities in our Winter Fine Motor Kit.
• Use the printable ideas in the Penguin Fine Motor Kit for building scissor skills and hand strength.
• Incorporate snowman crafts and scissor activities using our latest Snowman Therapy Kit.

Done-for-you motor tasks to help kids form stronger bodies that are ready to learn.

Use fun, themed, fine motor activities so you can help children develop fine and gross motor skills in a digital world.

Themed NO-PREP printable pages include tasks to address fine motor skills such as:

• Endurance Activities
• Dexterity Activities
• Graded Precision Activities
• Pinch and Grip Strength Activities
• Arch Development Activities
• Finger Isolation Activities
• Separation of the Sides of the Hand Activities
• Open Thumb Web-Space Activities
• Wrist Extension
• Bilateral Coordination Activities
• Eye-Hand Coordination Activities
• Crossing Midline Activities

Click here to read more about the Winter Fine Motor Kit.