North Carolina Early Learning and Development Progressions: Birth to Five

Domain: NC Foundations for Early Learning: Health and Physical Development (HPD)

Subdomain: Motor Development

Goal: Children develop small muscle control and hand-eye coordination to manipulate objects and work with tools.

Skill Progression: Manipulation/Tool use

Age: 27-30 Months

Click here to go to all skills for ages 27-30 Months.

Makes random snips with scissors on paper with no forward movement of scissors

Situations for Observation of Skill

Observe the child and adult with child-sized scissors and a piece of paper.

Elicitation Strategy

The adult models snipping paper with scissors. The adult provides support for holding the scissors if needed.

Behavior Observed

The child cuts one or two snips without help.

Routines-based Intervention (Embedded Instruction)

Many parents do not allow young children to use scissors for safety reasons. Let them know that child-sized safety scissors are fine as long as the child is supervised. Small scissors give the child practice with moving the thumb in opposition to the fingers. Make cards to mail to Grandma.

 North Carolina Department of Public Instruction, 2015

©2015 by the North Carolina Department of Public Instruction. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/.