Welcome to
MRS. PIERMATTEI'S
PRE-SCHOOL
HOW TO PRACTICE CUTTING SKILLS
Children need fine motor dexterity and muscle strength to use scissors correctly. Often practice is all that is needed. There are many different kinds of scissors and children may need to try different types. Here are some tips to help your child.
· Scissors should be held with the thumb in one hole and two fingers in the other hole. The thumb should be on top.
· Practice opening and closing the scissors to become familiar with the motion. If this is difficult for your child, place your hand over theirs and help to open and close the scissors. Many children turn their hand sideways while cutting and this is what causes the difficulty as the scissors will not cut well unless held upright.
· The free hand should hold and guide the paper. Some children need to be shown how to move the paper and this makes it easier for the other hand to cut.
· Start by snipping these strips of paper into pieces or confetti.
· Next try cutting a piece of paper in half.
· When children feel more confident, try simple shapes such as circles, squares and triangles.
· Try having your child cut out coupons from the newspaper. You can also cut pictures from magazines or the catalogs that come in the mail. Pictures can be glued onto sheets of paper and stapled together to make scrapbooks. Simple topics can prove a theme, such as animal pictures or favorite foods. If you write labels or have your child write letters to go with the pictures, then the activity is more meaningful.
· Use the snips of confetti to create pictures or collages.
· Wallpaper books are available from stores and the different types of wallpaper are fun to cut up.
READINESS SKILLS
There are many activities which you can initiate to help your child develop readiness skills. While carrying out these activities, keep in mind that the most effective motivator for any child is to have FUN!!! Skills are best taught through pleasurable activities rather than in rote situations which demand too much concentration and focus little attention on enjoyment.
Speech and Language: Be a good model for your child to copy. Encourage them to imitate you. Praise and reward their speech efforts.
1. Plan a regular time each day for reading to your child.
2. Have your child listen for directions by playing hiding games like “I Spy”.
3. Listen for sounds inside and outside the house. Make sure they know what they are as you talk about them
4. Provide a catalog. Randomly identify and talk about the pictured objects.
5. Puppets give your child the opportunity to be creative.
6. Play word games that help your child learn categories. For example: “What kind of an animal lives on a farm?” “…in the jungle?”
7. Let your child prepare meals or snacks and discuss such concepts as fruit, vegetables, and liquid, solid.
8. Discuss a day trip and its sequence before you go; then when you return, go over the sequence and have the child draw a picture about the day.
9. Sing and say nursery rhymes together-this helps with memory and sequence.
Fine Motor:
1. Color in various kinds of coloring books. Teach them to be proud of their work by hanging up their pictures.
2. Practice cutting with blunt scissors-cut out pictures from magazines, make a scrapbook, cut out coupons- decide together on a theme or a particular hobby (pictures) of cars, flowers, etc.
3. Play with playdough and clay.
4. Finger painting-pasting-chalk drawings.
5. Let your child help in the kitchen-mix, beat, peel, sift flour, frost cakes, spread peanut butter.
6. Fold napkins and articles of clothing.
7. Hammer nails into a board; use a screwdriver and sort nails, nuts and bolts into jars.
8. Build with blocks, Lincoln Logs and Legoes.
9. Work on puzzles-make your own by cutting a magazine picture out, mount on cardboard, cut into 3, 4 or more parts.
10. Necklaces can be made by arranging beads on a string.
Gross Motor:
1. Trips to the park, playground, beach and nature hikes.
2. Play “Follow the Leader” –walk, run, jump, hop, skip, turn, gallop, etc.
3. Jump rope.
4. Play games involving a ball such as kickball, dodge ball, and waffle ball. Start with a large ball and work down to a smaller size.
5. Play Tag, Leapfrog, Giant steps, Red light Green light, and relay races.
6. Rake leaves and shovel snow.
Social Skills –These skills, particularly sharing, taking turns, learning to win or lose appropriately, can all be stressed during game activities. If you want to work on the fine skills such as “excuse me”, “please”, “thank you” etc, try mealtimes. The best way, though, is to continue your own good example. Listening is an important social skill. An excellent way to improve this is reading stories.