Fine Motor Skills, Occupational Therapy, Occupational Therapy Activities, Visual Motor Skills

Cutting Playdough

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Colleen Beck, OTR/L is a pediatric occupational therapist and the owner and author of The OT Toolbox website. She manages all of The OT Toolbox social media accounts and runs the popular newsletter. Colleen created The OT Toolbox in 2011 and since then has written thousands of blog posts designed to support therapy providers, educators, parents, counselors, admin, and caregivers in promoting the healthy development of kids. Check out Colleen's blog posts below:

by Colleen Beck OTR/L
May 7, 2023

This cutting playdough activity is a fine motor hand strengthening activity that builds scissor skills, bilateral coordination, and more! We love using play dough snakes to target these skills, but in this blog post, we’re talking all things cutting playdough with scissors!

Cutting play Dough

By cutting playdough with scissors, you can quickly target several areas:

Little Guy is just learning how to hold the scissors, how to coordinate both hands together when cutting, how to open and shut the blades of the scissors to cut smooth lines, and how to stay on a line when cutting.

This little activity is perfect to work on all of those things.

Plus, he thought it was a ton of fun to Cut. Play Dough. With. Scissors.

First, roll out the play dough into a “play dough snake“…this is a perfect fine motor strengthening activity for little hands.

Mom, You then use the blades of the scissors to press lines into the “snake”.

Why cutting play dough?

The child will hold the play dough snake with his assisting (non-dominant hand). Using the helper hand in a coordinated manner can be tricky for the new cutter. A fun way to practice (like this activity) is a real confidence booster.

Holding the scissors in a vertical position is sometimes, a big part of the problem with accuracy of cutting paper along lines. Cutting the play dough snake usually will automatically correct a horizontal or diagonal position of the scissors. Practice will help to carry-over the positioning when cutting paper.

The nice wide and short lines in the play dough snake are great for practicing line awareness and the “open/shut” motion of the scissors when cutting. Plus, the slight resistance of the play dough really provides feedback to the child. We cover this in our post on graded precision.

Just be sure to do this activity with your child. This shouldn’t be an unsupervised activity…a little finger can get caught in the scissors easily.

This one looked like so much fun that Big Sister had to join in too 🙂

Expand the activity to cut play dough with scissors

One way to make this activity more difficult, or to add resistance to the playdough for greater hand strengthening is to freeze the play dough. Popping it in the freezer makes the dough more resistant, adding greater feedback through the hands.

More fine motor activities:

Working on fine motor skills, visual perception, visual motor skills, sensory tolerance, handwriting, or scissor skills? Our Fine Motor Kits cover all of these areas and more.

Check out the seasonal Fine Motor Kits that kids love:

Letters Fine Motor Kit — Summer Fine Motor Kit

Kit de motricidad fina de verano — Summer Fine Motor Kit

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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.

1 thought on “Cutting Playdough”

Luanne Pang

March 14, 2013 at 3:30 am

oh!! this is cool. I will try this one for my little boy. Thanks for sharing!

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Heavy Work in the Classroom

Cutting Playdough

Colleen Beck OTR/L

Cutting play Dough

Why cutting play dough?

Expand the activity to cut play dough with scissors

1 thought on “Cutting Playdough”

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