Saturday 30 July 2011

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Montessori Activity: Cutting French Beans with Scissors/Skæring med Saks/使用剪刀 [shǐ yòng jiǎn dāo]





Inspired by Hapalab

Age: 2.5 years old

Activity Duration: 5-15 minutes

Objective(s):

1. To train the child’s fine motor skills
2. To inculcate life skills

Materials:

1. 1 pair of scissors
2. 1 bunch of french beans rinsed

3. 1 basket (optional)

Directions:

1. Demonstrate to your child by cutting the french beans with the scissors slowly one by one.

2. Then assist your child to hold the scissors with thumb and fingers in the handle himself and have him practice opening and closing the scissors.

3. As your child opens and closes the scissors, hold the straw in between the scissors while he cuts it.

Additional Information:

Here is another variation of cutting activities. I got the idea from Hapalab. One can also use spring onions. The Chinese use the scissors for many things in the kitchen - also cutting pork and meat. I also use the scissors to cut salmon fillet into bite size for the chopstícks, when making fish noodles soup.

What to do with the beans you have cut? Here is a very tasty and healthy Japanese inspired recipe.

We tried this activity today. At this age, J (2Y4M25D) found it too hard to cut the french beans with one hand, and thus he was using both hands, with my help to hold the beans.

References:

http://hapalab.blogspot.com/2010/12/snip.html

1 comment:

  1. Thanks for the reference link Elaine! I got Z some toddler scissors that had a loop for the thumb and a Bigger loop for the 4 other fingers. That way, he would have the help of of his entire hand to cut through the beans.

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