Straw bracelets

R's favourite activity at the moment is cutting. He just adores it. He will ask for the scissors constantly and is not content with only having paper to cut, so I decided to give him some straws. I set up the activity on a tray, placing some straws, the scissors and a bowl to put the cut pieces of straw into (though as can see from the pictures below, the pieces bypassed the bowl and ended up all over the floor!).

He picked one up eagerly and began to cut. He found it difficult at first and wasn't sure of the right way to hold the scissors or straw but soon got the hang of it. Using scissors is a fine motor skill that develops around the age of 3 to 4 years old but can take up to the age of 6 to be fully developed. At almost 26 months of age R is quite young to be doing this I guess, but it's what he wants to do so I'm going with it!

"Look Mummy, cutting!" says R as he happily cuts up the straws.

He has a look of concentration on his face!

Cutting straws is so much fun!

"Look Mummy, on the floor!"

We picked up all the pieces of straws and put them in a bowl ready for the next activity; making bracelets!

I put the straw beads and some pipe cleaners on a tray and invited the children to make some bracelets.

D was very excited about this activity but R got bored after only a few minutes, afterall, he'd already been engaged for quite a while doing the cutting exercise. He'd probably had enough of the straws. However, he was still keen to wear the bracelet I made him and show it off!