THE SPIRAL SNAKE
Scissor Skills
Fine Motor Skills
Coordination
Hand Dominance
Developing Scissor Skills
This activity has been designed to help your child develop their scissor skills by creating a spiral snake. Creating a snake turns bland scissor practice into a fun and more purposeful activity, since the snake can be used to play with or decorate afterwards.
Cutting a spiral is a more advanced scissor skill, since cutting an arc can be more challenging for a child new to scissors.
If your child is new to scissor cutting, perhaps practice simpler activities like snipping along the edge of paper to make a grass effect. Next steps are to cut longer strips through the paper, where the ends can then be glued together to make a bracelet.
Using the ‘Helping Hand’
The use of the non-dominant hand for stability and control supports a person to be more accurate when using scissors. If your child uses their right hand to hold the scissors, their left hand will be their helping hand.
*If your child is using the scissors with their left hand, make sure they are using left handed scissors! These are different from standard scissors as the blades are positioned to help them see the line they are cutting. A left hander using right handed scissors can be very challenging. All stationary stores should stock left handed scissors.
This hand’s role is to hold and guide the paper while the scissors are cutting. Instead of turning the scissor hand to cut arcs and corners, the scissor hand should stay in position and the helping hand turns the paper. I like to say ‘turn the paper like a steering wheel’, particularly when making the spiral snake in this activity.
No More ‘Hand Over Hand’
Hand over hand assistance has commonly been used to support a child develop a skill or their coordination by controlling the child’s body part. This is often seen with drawing tasks. It may look like the child is ‘participating’, but they are only learning how to do the activity with someone moving their hands. If your child has difficulty getting started, instead of using hand over hand, model how to do it first. Demonstrate what to do so they can see what is expected or how to begin. They can then try when they are ready. If they don’t feel up to it, be flexible and change the activity.
The most important thing is that we need to respect a child’s right to control their own body. Respecting bodily autonomy helps a child learn that only they should control their body and choose what they participate in. This keeps them safe and values their right to give or deny consent.
How Does It Work?
Print the colour snake that your child would like to make. You might like to print one for yourself so your child can watch as you model how to do it.
Firstly, cut out the circle shape of the snake. This will make it easier to cut the spiral.
Starting at the tail, cut along the spiral, following the line to the head. This is a great chance to practice and use the helping hand to turn the paper to cut along the spiral, instead of the scissor hand turning and becoming less accurate.
Stop cutting beside the head and lift the snake up to watch the stretchy spiral bounce in the air.
Add any decorations or extra colours. Maybe even design a home for the snake.
Have fun!
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