The Benefits of Cut and Glue Activities for Toddlers & Preschoolers

Cut & Glue activities (or Cut & Paste) is very beneficial for young children. Let’s see some of them :

• Develop Fine Motor Skills
• Hand Eye Coordination
• Builds Focus
• Increase Attentiveness
• Trains Mindfullnes
• and many more.

One thing that parents usually doesn’t know, is that these skills are NOT intuitive. Children that have been exposed to these training usually will develop them better.

For Toddlers, the exercise can be designed to be simpler.

What you need :

1. Some colored paper or crepe (thin paper).
2. Some larger, sturdier sheet of paper, such as cardstock or art paper.
3. Children’s scissors (usually plastic blade).
4. Glue (Non Toxic White Paper Glue) or natural gum.
5. Suitable work areas, preferably desk and chair.

The Exercise:

Start by showing/guiding your toddler to use the scissors. Children must always be supervised. Plastic Kid’s scissors works best because even though they can still hurt the skin, it will not cause any bleeding if accidentally fell or grazed the skin.

Have them cut the paper, don’t stress about the shape or anything, just focus on good form in using the scissors. Let them have fun! Be attentive but try not to Micromanage your toddler. As long as it’s safe for them to do so. When they do something unsafe, take their attention, and use short, firm word (low tone) to tell them what it can cause them (for instance, making a pointing motion to the blade, then to their finger, then saying “it hurts”, etc.)

Next, apply some glue to the cut, colored paper, you may have them put away the scissors first, then show them or have them apply it. Make sure to take their time “feeling” the glue. let them touch it, feel it sticky in their hands, let the paper sticks there, let them experience it.

Then, let them try pasting the papers on to the cardstock/art paper. You can use HVS plain paper for this but I usually found it a bit flimsy, especially after being wetted with glue.

Once again, don’t be too controlling about where they stick it (you can make suggestions, but please don’t be too demanding). Toddlers can be sensitive and they might try to to the same thing next time just to please you, losing the point of the exercise which is to explore possibilities.

Use any opportunities to ask questions, comments, or suggestions ; i.e. “let’s try sticking it here”, or “do you want to put it there?”, etc.

Encourage the toddler to express themselves, to say things, to comment more. and generally, have fun!