The other day, while dropping my little girl off at kindy, I noticed she was having trouble using the scissors, while other kids around her seemed quite capable.
What I realised was that I’m the one always controlling the scissors at home. Not because I don’t think she’s capable but probably just because it’s faster, or maybe she just asks and I do it without thinking.
So I decided to set up a play based learning activity that involved a pretend hair cutting station as a fun way to let her practise cutting.
She was very excited to see the station all set up when she awoke, and wondered what it was all about.
When I told her that all the creatures had come to her for a hair cut she replied, “but I don’t know how to cut hair Mummy.” I said, “that’s fine they don’t know that!” And off she went, loving every minute of it.
Play based learning – Pretend hair cutting station
There’s no correct way to set this station up, you really just make do with whatever you have around the home. I’ll get you started by listing what we used and then you can go from there.
Materials you will need
Paper
Felt
Card
Toilet rolls
Wool
Pens
Play dough
pipe cleaners
Glue
Setting up
To set this invitation to play up you will need to make some funny guys (that’s what my daughter likes to call them). There are a number of different ways to do this. I decided to use different materials for the hair. This allowed my daughter to discover different textures while cutting.
To make the little Pompom guys all you need to do is create a pompom. You can find out how to make a pompom here. Once you’ve made a pompom, glue eyes and mouths on them. I also twisted a pipe cleaner around the middle of the pompom to create legs. Don’t worry about trimming your pompom leave that up to your little ones.
If pompoms aren’t your thing, I also created paper heads with felt hair. The felt hair can be swapped out for paper, but at the time I only had white paper lying around, so I decided to use coloured felt instead. This ended up being a really great texture for cutting.
To make the paper and felt heads you simply cut out any shaped head you want. Then cut out different hair styles and glue them on, easy peasy! Next, glue or draw on some facial features. To make them stand I found attaching the heads to a toilet roll works really well because they stand freely.
The other way I attached the heads was using a folded pipe cleaner and sticking it to the back. Once attached, I placed some play dough into an egg carton and poked the pipe cleaner into it. You can see this in the picture below.
We’d love to see your creations so share your ideas in the comments below, or share your pics on Instagram to inspire others. Also check out our Instagram channel where we share more of our day-to-day creations and happenings.
Our kids are learning and developing…
Physical skills – This activity is all about practising fine motor skills along with hand and eye coordination. Giving your children the opportunities to practise cutting will help in many different areas of their development. Fine motor skills helps small children perform everyday skills like cutting, self-care tasks and pencil skills. Small children practise their fine motor skills by using the small muscles in their hands while cutting.
Cognitive – Imaginative play is an important building block for a child’s learning because it gives them the opportunity to take on different roles. This allows children the unique opportunity to learn social skills such as communication, problem solving, and empathy through play. You will notice that during this invitation your child will become both the hairdresser and person getting it’s hair cut. This gives you child the opportunity to play out many different scenario.
