Thanksgiving Feather Cutting

Sweet Pea is 43 months old.

From: I observed Sweet Pea doing this activity in her preschool class.

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

Material:

• Feather Cutting worksheet (This file is a .pdf files and requires Foxit or Adobe Acrobat for viewing.)

• Scissors (Our favorite pair are the Koopy Kid Scissors from Moped.)

Procedure:

• Print out the Feather Cutting worksheet and cut it in half.  You may want to print on colored paper to make this activity more interesting.
• Help your tot hold the scissors properly if necessary and give him one of the feathers.
• Invite your tot to cut out the feather along the thick outline.

• After your tot has cut out the feather, encourage him to cut along the narrower lines to make the feather look more realistic.
• Repeat with as many feathers as your tot is interested in cutting.
• For Thanksgiving, you could use these feathers to create a turkey.

Observations: When I observed Sweet Pea’s class, she and her classmates all loved this activity and I thought it would be a great activity for home too.

Once Sweet Pea had finished cutting out the first two feathers, I tried to give her another one to do, but she refused.  She insisted that she could only cut two per day.  Sweet Pea’s preschool teacher limited the students to two feathers per day and as a result Sweet Pea limited herself at home also.

This is an easy activity that I recommend for an older tot.

Notes from the Trenches: The feather cutting activity may be too tricky for a younger tot who has not used scissors much before.

Please strictly supervise your tot while they are using scissors.

Rating: 4 Stars * (Fun, Easy, Independent, Frugal)