Making Puzzles

My 5-year old desperately wanted to help me cut apart the family pictures we picked up today. He was quite distraught when I said that only Mom and Dad cut these pictures, because we can't replace them. Finally I thought to let him cut something with his own *sharp* scissors.

We looked at a couple of coloring books for cutting material, then decided to make our own puzzles. I drew a puzzle design on top of his old colored pictures, then he cut along the lines. He mixed up the pieces, and reassembled them all. Finally, he put all the paper puzzles into plastic sandwich bags for re-use.

It was a great 30-minute activity station, and I hear that cutting with scissors is one of the best developmental tasks that a preschool bot can practice.