Using Scissors

Learning to use scissors is generally recommended for children age 3 and older, but Nikki has always been more interested, and thus more developed in his fine motor skills (at the expense of bothering with all that crawling and walking nonsense!) and has been really keen to try scissors for some time now. Unfortunately, my 'safe' scissors were too heavy for his little fingers, so I have been waiting for him to grow a little.

Last week, in one of his more distructive moods, Nikki decided to upend a bucket full of dough-tools all over the floor. I sorted the tools away nearly 12 months ago, but hadn't thought about them because Nikki wasn't interested in playing with his playdough for more than a couple of minutes and even then rejected cutters. His recent interest in playing with the dough was why the bucket of tools was within his reach.

Well, in that bucket were several pairs of scissors - small and plastic, completely useless for paper cutting but perfect for soft dough. Nikki was so excited that I let him have the scissors!

We rolled sausages:

 Then, Nikki cut them and rolled the small pieces into balls:

Then we got tired of making balls and focused on cutting up as many sausages as Mummy could make!

Look at the concentration as he makes the cut!

We then explored some of the other tools and found a faster way to get the thin sausages that are best for cutting!

Nikki has a new cheesy camera grin!

I love his strong-man face!

 He might not be ready for 'proper' scissors and cutting paper, but I think he did a pretty good job! He has a perfect 'scissor grip', and the angle of the scissors doesn't matter with playdough! My favourite part is that it kept him quiet for most of an hour! And he had fun, too!