Let's Cut Paper! (Kumon First Steps Workbooks)

I have been reviewing all of the books currently available in the Kumon First Steps Workbooks series, and LET'S CUT PAPER is the 4th and final one. It is just wonderful, like the other 3 books: LET'S STICKER AND PASTE, LET'S COLOR, and LET'S FOLD. This book gives young children (recommended age 2 and up) a fun first experience handling scissors.My son is 8 yrs. old and is a normal boy in every way, except like many children, was slower to develop some of his fine motor skills. He has loved using all of these first steps workbooks, along with the regular Kumon workbooks. He has gained much in his ability to cut carefully using the simple exercises in this book. Please be sure to give your child a GOOD pair of scissors with this book! Cheap and junky scissors will lead to the projects looking chewed, not cut. Do your child a favor and let his projects look beautiful by giving him a good pair of scissors. Fiskars for children, with blunt or pointed tips are very good. We use the Crayola child's scissors, with all metal blades (not plastic) and these cut extremely well too.Now armed with a good pair of scissors, what will your child be cutting? Well, there are 39 small pages for him to cut, beginning with simple things like cut the whiskers on the cat, the dog, and the tiger. Project #4 is cutting the square paper in half on the thick grey line, and arranging the 2 pieces to make a picture of a car. #6 has you do this, but cutting the square on a diagonal, and arranging the 2 pieces to make a boat.#7 has the child make 3 cuts across the square, and tape the 3 cut pieces in order to make a rocket. Project #8 is the same, with 3 cuts making 4 pieces to tape together...it is a tug of war rope with animals! My son loved playing this game, we each took an end and pulled to see whose animals won the tug of war (the tape will snap apart). The next few are cutting the aquare into 4 small squares and arranging the picture correctly, like a 4 pc. puzzle. Several projects involve cutting from the outside in, to free up the arms and legs of a teddy bear or cat, the wings and tail of a bird, etc. Some pages have the child cut and then fold the edges to make animals in a fenced pasture, etc.Then there is a section where the child cuts across the mouth of people and various animals. The mouths are wavy, curved, etc, and when cut, you can make the mouth closed, or open to see what they are eating. Several more pages are having the child cut along the grey line either in a spiral, or diminishing square, triangle, etc. to cut apart a spider web, or a fish line, or roses on a vine, or watermelons in a patch, or make a curly snake. All these teach the child to cut and turn the paper when the direction of the cutting line changes. Other pages have the child cut a square, circle, oval,triangle out of the center of the page to flip corrctly to be the lions face, the rhino's nose, etc. And at the end are objects to just cut out: #33 is a beach ball, #34 is a half a sandwich, #36 a hippo head, #38 a rabbit's head. Very simple, yet again teaching the children to carefully cut and reposition the paper while doing so. This is a very fun book, the artwork is fun and not babyish, is colorful, and printed on heavy paper. Many children LOVE scissors and love to cut things! So give them this book, and maybe it will save baby sister's hair from being cut off! After your child completes this book, I recommend Kumon's MY FIRST BOOK OF CUTTING, which has 40 more project pages for the scissor happy child to cut! In conclusion: a wonderful, wonderful little book!

I recently purchased a scissor skill book for my child and I have to say, I am incredibly impressed with this product. While it is a bit advanced for my 2 year old, my 4 year old LOVES it. The book is filled with a variety of engaging activities that have helped my child improve their scissor skills in a fun and enjoyable way.What I love most about this book is that it is designed with children in mind. The activities are age-appropriate, with clear and simple instructions that are easy for young children to follow. The illustrations are colorful and engaging, which makes the activities more appealing to children.Another great feature of this book is that it offers a variety of cutting exercises that gradually increase in difficulty. This has allowed my child to progress at their own pace, building confidence as they go.Overall, I highly recommend this scissor skill book to any parent looking for a fun and effective way to help their child improve their cutting skills. It's well-designed, engaging, and has been a valuable tool in helping my child build important motor skills.

This activity book is amazing! I got the book for my four-year-old grandson because I noticed that he really had no clue as to how to use scissors effectively. I had never worked with the Kumon books before, and I was really impressed with the colorful pictures and the way the book progresses slowly yet steadily in the level of difficulty. This helps develop the child's scissors confidence and control, and it helps the child gradually train and strengthen the muscles used to manipulate scissors. At first the child makes multiple short straight cuts, eventually progressing to longer straight cuts to curves, spirals, and finally to outlines of objects and animals.At first my grandson really struggled to make the cuts and couldn't manage holding the scissors and the paper at the same time. For the first ten or so activities my job was to hold the paper for him so that he could focus on manipulating the scissors. He needed lots of coaching and encouragement, and he would get frustrated, but he was so excited about making his own toys and presents for family members and decorations for parties, that he kept at it. He loved the results of the first two projects, cutting the whiskers for a dog and a cat, so much that he slept with them both during naps and at night.. Somehow he also got the idea that I should cut out the outlines of the animals so he could tape them onto chopsticks to make puppets. So each project had a "child part" and a "grandma part". Today's projects had the child cutting out the outlines of the objects and animals. I simply handed my grandson the child's portion of the pages, and he went and got the scissors and did them all himself and finished the whole book. It is the first time he has ever finished an entire activity book, and he was so excited about that. I signed his certificate of completion and he very proudly showed it off to Daddy when Daddy came to take him home. And my grandson took home four more puppets that he had made himself! And he asked to do more scissors projects!The most impressive results from this activity book, though, are not about just scissors skills or even about being better prepared for kindergarten. These projects progressed at a rate that let him be successful even when he felt challenged. They developed his confidence and got him excited about making things himself and adding his own creative innovations. They inspired creative play. They encouraged generosity since he had lots of projects to give away as gifts. Through this scissors skills book, my grandson has discovered a love of learning and an enthusiasm for craft-style projects that will probably be life-long. Plus, he had a whole lot of fun with Grandma! That's a lot of value from one activity book.I had also purchased the Melissa & Doug Scissor Skills Activity Pad for my grandson, but it was too advanced for him until now. He completed the first of the 20 activities today, and with his new-found enthusiasm for scissors activities, he will probably finish the entire activity pad this week. After that, I'm going back to Kumon books. Nothing else compares!In closing, I want to make one really important point. It is crucial to have good children's blunt-tip scissors for these projects. We had already experimented with two different pairs of less expensive children's scissors,before breaking down and buying Fiskars 5 Inch Classic Blunt Tip Kids Scissors, Color Received May Vary. The Fiskars were such a huge improvement that I ended going back and getting a second pair for me, so that I could work side by side with my grandson so he could imitate me. The Fiskars are far more comfortable to use and their ergonomic shape gently guides the child's hand into the proper position. And they have large enough handles that I can use them quite comfortably for these kinds of projects.

Pros: Cute pictures, clear lines, simple enough for young kids but does get more complexcons: small, I wish it was full size paper. weird shiny paper that looks nice but is not ideal for cutting, it should be thick, easy to hold paper.