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My First Book of Cutting from Kumon

Sweet Pea is 34 months old.

From: We have had great luck with Kumon’s “My First” series of books, so I decided to order Kumon’s My First Book of Cutting from Amazon.

Prerequisite: If your tot hasn’t worked with scissors before, I suggest you try the Introduction to Scissors – Cutting Play-doh activity first.

Material:

  • Kumon’s My First Book of Cutting or you can print out “Cutting Practice” worksheets.
  • Plastic safety scissors (MAPED Kooopy Kids Scissors are, by far, the best that I have found.  We got ours from Target, but I think they only carry them during back to school season.)

Procedure:

  • If desired, read any of the information in the Kumon’s My First Book of Cutting and then rip the cover off.
  • Neatly stack the torn out pages and store them in a file folder or box.
  • Sit next to your tot and review your family’s rules regarding scissors.
  • Help your tot hold the scissors properly if necessary and present them with the first cutting page.
  • Allow your tot to cut along the lines as directed.
  • Repeat with other pages as desired.

Observations: Sweet Pea loves to cut so this activity was a huge hit.  It has kept her occupied for a very long time.  I would definitely recommend this book for other tots.

However, the skill required gets increasingly complicated as work through the book.   Near the middle , the pages got too difficult for Sweet Pea.  She wasn’t really able to do them anymore, even though she certainly tried.  My husband refers to a cat and bear she cut out as “Lucky” and “Stumpy” (because the things she cuts out become her new best friends and are carried about and played with for a while until I can bury them under the junk mail  in the trashcan) .    I am actually contemplating buying another book and letting her redo the first half again because she has had so much fun with it.

Sweet Pea was very proud and wanted me to take a picture of the line she had cut.

Notes from the Trenches: Scissors can cut things like clothes and hair.  Obviously only allow your tot to use them under supervision.

I  limit how many pages Sweet Pea is allowed to cut per day, but they still get used up quickly.  And $6.95 seems a little pricey for a stack of paper that your tot will just be shredding.  I think that the pictures of animals, trains, roads, etc in the Kumon book give a nice context to what your tot is supposed to cut out.  However, if you want a more frugal option you could just print out these free cutting paper template from Montessori Materials.

Rating: 3 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Independent)

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