With preschool looming for many three and four year olds, it’s maybe time to encourage them in developing their fine motor skills. When they get to Montessori or play-school, they will have lots of opportunities to use scissors and also to do crafts. If you do some at home with them, they will be more confident in doing it when they are in school. If you want to encourage this, but you just don’t know where to start,read on.  Here’s 10 activities or tools that you can use with your child to help them with their scissor skills and their pincher motion.

1. First Mosaic Crafts

This mosaic set comes with 6 colourful boards and over 400 raised foam stickers to stick on them.  It is recommended for children aged 3-6 years and is made by Galt Toys.

2. Collages for 3-5 year olds

This kit comes with 4 blank templates of a rabbit, cat, bear and mouse and lots of pre-cut shapes to decorate the animals. Your child can give them clothes, faces and much more. It also comes with a glue stick.

3. Zigzag Safety Scissors

This is a set of 3 pairs of safety scissors for preschool aged children. These scissors will cut paper and card (but not clothes or hair lol). One set cuts straight lines, one does zigzag lines and the third cuts in wavy lines.

4. Collages with Small Loops

Inside this box you will get 4 boards with a different animal to complete (a parrot, a flamingo, a lama and a lion), 82 strips of paper in different colours and a glue stick. The paper is already cut for your child but it gives them ideas on how to fold and roll the paper to make 3D pictures.

5. Puffy Stickers

Puffy Stickers are great for pre-school aged children as they should be able to peel them off and move them onto other surfaces with much help. I love these reusable puffy sticker activities from Melissa and Doug as they come with a background, can be used over and over and can be easily brought places with your young child to keep them busy while you spend time with friends and family. I stock the Princess, Pirate and Farm sets.

6. Play Mais

PlayMais are colourful corn balls that when dampened stick together or to card. These craft boxes come with background boards and lots of PlayMais. The idea is to stick the balls onto the boards to make 3D pictures. I stock the Little Zoo one above and Little Forest.

7. Funny Faces Sticker Book

This activity is slightly more difficult for young children as the stickers aren’t raised so they are harder to pick up. The stickers are reusable and the book is full of blank faces. This activity book is great for teaching children how to express emotions as well as it just being fun making some funny faces. I also stock a Animals version of this book.

8. Safety Scissors

If buying 3 pairs of safety scissors is too much for you and you just want to start with one pair that cut straight lines, then these safety scissors are what you are looking for. They are brilliant for crafts for this age group and will keep your little one busy cutting random pieces of paper or card.

9. Colour, Shapes and Sizes Sticker Book

Not only will this book encourage your child to use their pincher grip to move the stickers into the correct places, there’s opportunities for them to practice their pencil skills too and it teaches them about different colours, shapes and sizes. It’s win/win all around.

10 Scissor Skills Set

Get your child to practice their scissor skills with this Scissor Skills Kit from SES Creative. It even comes with a pair of safety scissors.

I hope these activities and tools have given you some inspiration on how to develop your child’s scissor and pincher skills. If you’d also like to help them learn their alphabet and basic phonics, check out this blog here. Or, this blog on activities and games that help develop fine motor skills.

If you have older children going back to school too and you don’t want to leave them out, check out this blog ‘Stationery that will make your friends jealous!’

xx Suzie