Daily Creativity: Nurturing The Artist Within: Cutting Skills

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nurturing creativityWelcome back to this week’s “Daily Creativity“. Today we look at the oh so simple and yet very difficult cutting skills! You think, what is so special about that? Well… pretty much any artwork involving collages will involve cutting skills – you will want to out special things to add to your artwork and neat lines are hard to achieve. Or you may be making a photo collage and want to cut out detailed items for your creation. All involves the ability and patience to use scissors well. If you are teaching kids how to use scissors, read on!

We got cutting “funky foam”. It was a rather random choice, but I had some lying around and the kids loved it. Both resulted in creativity! Red Ted made funny little 3D sculptures and Pip Squeak filled a cup with “pretend food”. The was no aim to the session, save for cutting, but the children decided to “take it a step further”. They cut and cut and cut for hours (I kid you not) over several days. Sorted.

Remember –  the idea is, not do these things just *once* and tick them off the list, but to do them again and again and again.

nurturing the young artists

If your child is having difficulties in cutting or shows no interest, why not try either changing the scissors they use or the materials they are cutting? Personally I find children’s scissors hard to cut with – so I child won’t find it easy either! Under supervision I frequently let them use my scissors and they much prefer it! Similarly cutting foam is easy, colourful and fun. Or you could try cutting playdough (lots of fun!). Cutting card is hard. Cutting material tricky. So try out different things and let your child explore and develop their cutting skills!

So. I hope you feel inspired by the little things and check out our other activities: Daily Creativity