Snip, Stick, Play!

A printable scissors book for children about 3 to 5, that takes them from the very first snip to cutting out a picture, with a short guide for the grown-up beside them.

Most cutting books give a child lines to cut and then nothing to do with the pieces. In this one, every cut makes something. The first snips become grass and pebbles for two big pictures, The Farm and The Sea, which you print once and keep. Each step after that adds to them: a fence, mountains, a farmhouse, waves, bubbles, the sun, and fish. In between come things to keep and play with: a lion with a mane your child snips, a train that lines up on its numbered track, a paper chain, a crown to wear, a pizza that cuts into four slices, five stand-up animals, and spirals that spin when you hang them up.

Five steps, in the order children learn them

1. Snip: one open-and-shut across a narrow strip, or into a fringe that stops at a dot.
2. Cut across: several snips in a row along a straight line. The lines get longer through the step: 10 cm, then 16, then 18.
3. Turn a corner: zigzags, squares and a triangle, stopping to turn the paper at each point.
4. Go round a curve: waves, then a half circle, then whole circles.
5. Cut out a picture: outlines round fish, a lion and farm animals, smoothed so a child cuts one calm shape instead of round every fin and leg.

Each step opens with a page for the grown-up: what the new movement is, when to start it, the sign that your child is ready to move on, and what to say. The cutting lines get a little thinner at each step. The order and the typical ages follow published guidance from NHS and other children's occupational therapy services, listed at the back.

Made to be easy to use at home

• Every sheet is printed on one side and stands alone, so cutting one never spoils another, and any sheet can be printed again for a second go or a brother or sister.
• Every piece fits where it goes. The train's three pieces drop into boxes on the track page that are half a millimetre bigger all round, and the pieces for The Farm and The Sea were checked against the space in each picture. The pages are the same size in both files.
• Left-handed children are included. Every shape has two start dots: green R where a right-handed child starts and goes anticlockwise, blue L where a left-handed child starts and goes clockwise. The spiral sheet has one spiral turning each way.
• Straight lines run right off the edge of their strip, so there is always somewhere to start.
• Every sheet says where its pieces go (eight show it in a small picture), and has one line for your child and a short note for you.

For the grown-up

Nine pages, written for someone who has never taught a child to cut: how to hold the scissors (thumbs up, fingers in the bottom loop, elbows in), what the helper hand does, which way round a shape to cut for each hand, what you need and how to print, how a ten-minute cutting time goes, what to say, and a troubleshooting table for the usual problems, from paper folding in the blades to tears because it is not perfect.

Also inside

• Five practice pages of plain lines, one for each step, to print as often as you like
• A cutting record to colour in, and a Scissor Star certificate
• A print list saying what to print on card and what on paper

What you download

• Snip, Stick, Play! (US Letter): 43 pages, PDF, with bookmarks and a contents page
• Snip, Stick, Play! (A4): the same 43 pages on A4 paper

Good to know

• Print at Actual size (100%), on one side of the paper. Thin card cuts most cleanly: 65 lb cover cardstock in the US, 160 to 180 gsm card in the UK. Plain printer paper works too. A colour printer is best.
• You will need child-sized scissors with rounded tips (left-handed ones for a left-handed child), a glue stick, and sticky tape for the chain and the crown.
• Always stay with your child while they use scissors, and keep small cut pieces away from babies and toddlers.
• For use at home with your own children. This is a PDF download; nothing is posted.