Cutting and shapes

(Resources: paper, glue, scissors and some old magazines or pictures to cut up)

I would like you to have a go at practising your fine motor skills and scissor skills with this activity. It is lots of fun and will keep you occupied for a good ten minutes, if not longer! 

What I would like you to do is get your grown up to draw lots of different shapes onto one piece of paper. These can be triangles, squares, circles, rectangles, anything you like. Then I would like you to get a pair of scissors and hold them like we do in school with your thumb in one hole and your third finger in the other hole. Rest the scissors on your second finger. If this is a little bit tricky (which it is!) you can use both hands to cut and ask your grown up for help. This is all about practising using the scissors. 

Then I would like you to find your favourite pictures from the magazines in front of you and have a go at cutting out different shapes to fit into the shapes on your paper. You could draw the shape first or you could just go for it and guess using the scissors. It doesn't matter if they're not perfect, have a go! 

Please send them in and show me what you have got up to. 

Repeating patterns 

(Resources: dinosaur pictures, sweets, toys, pencils, counters)

Repeating patterns is such a lovely activity to do with pre-school children and builds on lots of different aspects of learning including shapes, colours etc. Can you have a go? I have made a worksheet with different dinosaurs on if you have a printer at home and you can print them out. If not, you could draw different colours onto a piece of paper such as blue, green, blue, green etc and get your child to finish off the pattern. Have a look at the photos below. You could also find different toys and put them into a repeat pattern or different pencils or sweets. Anything you like.

Can you describe my repeating pattern? Can you make a pattern of your own? 

I'd love to see your patterns.