Teaching First: Bright Idea: Scissor Skills with Cut Paper Art

Do your students lack scissor skills? Sadly, with the lack of art being taught these days, I have several 2nd graders who are severely lacking in how to hold and use scissors, let alone cut shapes with them.

This past month we've focussed on scissor skills for this very reason! A great way to practice, is doing cut paper art and collage. I love art and I try to find time every Friday to do a little art project. I collect lots of cute and fun art projects on my Pinterest page. (You can find my Pinterest art ideas here.)

We started the year gathering all my Eric Carle books! We read and read and study all the different and amazing illustrations in his books. Then, we paint entire pieces of paper, learning how to mix the primary colors to make secondary colors. We texturize the painted paper while it's still wet using different tools. The next week we plan our pictures. I lay out the painted paper in stacks according to color and the students take what they need. Here are some of their final works:

This month we focussed on cutting paper to make Fall trees. I got the lesson from one of my favorite art blogs, Art Projects For Kids. This lesson is based on Kandisky's art. I thought that it would be a fun, colorful project. Interestingly, though, cutting circles proved to be frustrating at best for many of my students.

For this lesson, I just projected the steps of the lessons from Art Projects For Kids up on the Promethean board. I demonstrate how to do each step by doing a sample in front of the students. I just start the project in front of them and then they go to their seats and I walk them through each step again as they do it at their seats.

I can't tell you how difficult cutting out circles was for some of my students! I heard "I can't do this!" over and over. I kept responding by asking them to say "I can do this! I can do hard things!" (I love positive affirmations!!)

You'll see that a couple of my students gave up on circles and cut out triangles and squares. (I actually thing the triangles look really spooky for a great Halloween art project! Next year, I think I'll try that for Halloween!)

The best part of the art project was seeing how the students took the lesson and added their own touch to it! I love the doors, ladders, and pumpkins that were added!