The Little Professors: Introducing Safety Scissors

The first step in our Cut and Paste Projects theme is introducing, and getting familiar with, our Safety Scissors. I did not want to give the Professors anything other than whole, blank paper to cut, in order to let them explore freely, and get a feel for how to manipulate the scissors.

Getting ready to open the scissors. I have to say, Masha' Allah, Safety Scissors have come a long way since I was in school. These scissors don't separate at the handle, so the child only needs to grip the handles and add minimal pressure to cut, and these cut well.

Everyone was pretty excited to get right to work cutting. I didn't get any pictures, or really do a set up, but I divided up a stack of blank, whole, construction paper into three piles for each of them to cut.

Professor #1 spent a large amount of time cutting down his first piece of black construction paper into a neat pile.

He then got to work on another piece, and did the exact same thing, but Masha' Allah, after spending almost an hour cutting down his first piece he seemed tired, and didn't cut too much of his second paper

Masha' Allah, Professor #2 also chose a black piece of construction paper, and also spent nearly an hour cutting it into tiny tiny pieces, and into a pile, but focused on the scraps looking like sticks, circles and many other objects I cannot recall, but they all meant something to him. He did not want to cut more than one piece of paper, and spent the rest of the time surveying, and using the vairous objects he made.

Professor #3 was the most unsure about this project. I didn't expect much of him, as he participates at will in our projects. He spent most of his time trying to figure out which way he liked to hold the scissors. In between he took a totally different approach, Masha' Allah cutting each piece of construction paper, very slightly around the bottom or side of each piece before moving to another piece and doing the same thing.