Prekindergartners can practice cutting while making collages. Provide children with magazines, circulars and pieces of decorative paper. Encourage children to cut out pictures and pieces of paper and they can glue the cut pieces to pieces of construction paper to create collages. There is no right or wrong way to do this activity; the goal is to offer children an opportunity to put their scissors skills to use.
This activity encourages children to cut along lines. Use markers to draw straight, curved and zigzagged lines on paper. Show children how to use safety scissors to cut along the lines that are drawn on the paper and allow them to try cutting the lines on their own. Turn the cutout pieces of paper into different objects. For example, the rectangles that are created when cutting out straight lines can be used to create rays on a picture of a sun or turn them into loops, using a stapler to secure them and interlock the loops to create chains. Curved lines can be colored blue and glued to a picture of the ocean as waves. Zigzag lines can be glued to the bodies of bee pictures.
Once children exhibit the ability to cut along lines, progress to having them cut out shapes. Draw simple shapes on pieces of construction paper; circles, triangles and squares, for example. Explain to children that they should follow the lines of the shapes to cut them out. Once they cut out the shapes, they can use them to create different items. For instance, use circles to create wheels on a picture of a car and glue triangles and squares together to create houses.
Instead of practicing cutting skills on paper, consider trying a different medium, such as clay. Show children how to roll pieces of clay into snakes and how to flatten clay with rollers. Encourage them to use safety scissors to cut the snakes into pieces or the flattened clay into shapes. Since clay is thicker than paper, it's more difficult to cut through, which will help prekindergartners strengthen their fine motor skills.