This month in the Functional Skills for Kids Series, we are looking at cutting and scissor skills! You will find lots of great tips and tricks looking at scissor skills and cutting from the best therapy bloggers on the links at the end of this article.  

My focus is on incorporating play with scissor skills, so what better way to do this than to make puppets?!  Making a puppet gives your child's cutting some purpose.  It extends the activity so the "craft" can be played with ... encouraging further creativity with  imaginary story lines, character interactions, animal noises and speech. 

I have created these cute animal hand puppets with some ordinary brown paper bags and my FREE templates. Download these FREE templates to create a dragon, crocodile and shark from the YKOT shop.  
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These cutting templates include a range of skills including cutting along straight lines, zig zag lines, simple shapes and more complex shapes.  Cutting requires bilateral coordination with one hand holding the scissors and the "helper" hand holding and manipulating the paper as it is cut.  

You could help to encourage further play with these puppets by cutting out  props such as trees, a castle, people or other animals. Mr almost 6 years and I made this scene above to give some characters for the dragon puppet to harass. Unfortunately one of the characters was captured by the dragon when they ventured out of the castle and needed to be rescued! 

Do your kids like cutting? Do they like puppets? 

This article is part of “Functional Skills for Kids: 12 month series by Paediatric Occupational and Physical Therapists”. You can find lots of great tips and tricks to help your children with scissor skills in the links below. Make sure you bookmark this page so you can come back to read all the links!
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Developmental Progression of Scissor Skills: 35 Best Tips for Teaching Kids to Use Scissors | Mama OT
Fine Motor Considerations for Learning to Use Scissors |  Miss Jaime,  O.T.
Gross Motor Skills and Scissor Use  | Your Therapy Source
Sensory Processing and Scissor Skills - a Surprising Link  | Kids Play Space
Teach Kids How to Slow Down to Cut on Lines |Sugar Aunts
5 Tips for Difficulties with Scissor Skills  | Growing Hands-On Kids
Creative Cutting Practice for Kids | The Inspired Treehouse
Visual Motor Skills and Cutting With Scissors  | Therapy Fun Zone
Animal Puppets! Cut. Create. Play.  | Your Kids OT

Summer holidays in the northern hemisphere and Winter holidays here in the southern hemisphere.  Don't stop writing over the holiday breaks! Encourage your child with some themed writing about the season they are in! 

The Summer Holiday Writing Prompts Pack includes writing about expectations, what happens when the car stops and a letter to a friend.  

The Winter Holiday Writing Prompts Pack includes writing about a trip to the snow, things you have to wear during winter and what you might be missing about Summer!

Both packs also include a "who/what/when/where grid" for your child to choose the prompts used to write a story with an introduction, complication and resolution.

These packs are designed for young writers who need help with story ideas (approximately grades 2 and 3). It provides scaffolded lines to help with writing size and placement. 

​Find both the summer and winter holiday writing prompts at the Your Kids OT shop! Find lots of other helpful resources too!

Happy Writing!

It is that time of the year in Sydney when the days are getting shorter, the wind has a chill in the air and it is time for VIVID SYDNEY!  What a fabulous festival of light and colour which brings our city to life! There are installations to see in the Sydney CBD, Chatswood and this year for the first time at Taronga Zoo.  

Vivid Sydney at Taronga Zoo, whilst the only ticketed venue, really appealed to me as a "family friendly" option.  It didn't disappoint! Parking was easy, there was a wonderful story projected on the zoo entrance and an amazing light trail that led you on a journey through the zoo.  We weren't expecting to see any animals and you will be disappointed if you do expect to see them as they must have been all tucked up into their inner sanctuaries for the evening. 

The trail was completely accessible, including a laser light display as you enter via the first ramp  before you even see the first "lit up animal".  Those who are susceptible to sensory overload may find the laser lights a bit overwhelming as Miss 9 described the laser lights like "thousands of ants running in multiple directions in psychedelic colours"!  Most of the "lit up animals" were static, although some moved in a slow calm manner.  The ramped sections seem to be the most "ramped up" in terms of sensory input with another ramp full of vertical lights running up/down and music to go with it.

Here is an image of some of our favourite displays at Taronga Zoo. 

To make the most of  the "dark nights" we have four fabulous fun activities for your kids to play in the dark!

1. Knock Them Down in the Dark!
Add glowsticks to six plastic cups and knock them down with a soft rubber ball. Fun for all ages! 

2. Make pictures with glowsticks! 
​Mr almost-6 years and Miss 9 years loved this activity.  Simply create pictures with your glowsticks and see if anyone can guess what you have made! We made our pictures on a tiled floor, creating simple shapes as well as  more detailed pictures.
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3.  Glowstick Bath Time! 
Throw the glowsticks into the bath and they can be used to light the bath.  There is something a little special about having a bath in the dark! 
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4. Glowstick Torches (Flashlights) on the Trampoline! 
We have some supermarket purchased torches which light up like glowsticks (or light sabers if you prefer).  You can find similar here.  Mr almost-6 years and Miss 9 LOVED jumping on the trampoline as the sun set.  The torches turned into light-sabers for a bouncing battle.   
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Do your kids like playing in the dark?  Have you been to any of the VIVID Sydney displays?

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We love paper plane making! Making planes seems to appeal to both boys and girls and wide range of ages.  Just take out some paper at a weekend BBQ and you will have the big kids (ie. adults) involved in who can design and create the plane that can fly the furthest! 

You may have read my post two years ago about paper planes where I showed you how to make the "acrobatic" plane. Read it HERE if you missed it! 

Paper plane making is really a wonderful way to work on fine motor manipulation, visual planning and sequencing skills.  I use paper planes in therapy sessions to work on these things as well as using it as a writing prompt. You may prompt your kids with "Where is the plane going?", "Who is on the plane?", "What type of plane is this and what does it carry?", "What will the plane need to fly?".  "What can the people do on the plane during the flight?" or "What can the pilot see during the flight?"

​This time I have step by step instructions for you to make TWO more super planes! Find the instructions below and download your FREE COPY of the instructions as aPDF file HERE. 

I hope these planes bring you and your kids hours of entertainment! Let me know if you try them out! 
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