Pencil and scissor grip
‘Over the last few years, inspired by Alistair, we have been assessing, developing and tracking children’s pencil grip from the moment they join us in Nursery.
We ensure our children have access to a high quality and well resourced environment which supports physical development at all levels and have seen first hand the importance of this. As a team we wanted to ensure we had the same rigorous approach to enable children to progress in their ability to use scissors safely and effectively.
Our team began to research different varieties of scissors and linked this to the current needs of our children. We invested in a range of scissors for our children to use independently in provision. These scissors were matched to the physical development stage the children were at and included scissors that were activated by using the whole pam to push down, scissors that are designed to support limited grip strength and self-opening scissors for children who have progressed on to being able to isolate their index finger and thumb.
Our new scissors have transformed our provision, no longer do we find children frustrated and giving up. No longer do we have children feeling failure. They use scissors that they can successfully manipulate independently whilst we put our efforts into planning an environment and opportunities to support the fine and gross motor skill development required to be able to use a standard pair of scissors.’
We ensure our children have access to a high quality and well resourced environment which supports physical development at all levels and have seen first hand the importance of this. As a team we wanted to ensure we had the same rigorous approach to enable children to progress in their ability to use scissors safely and effectively.
Our team began to research different varieties of scissors and linked this to the current needs of our children. We invested in a range of scissors for our children to use independently in provision. These scissors were matched to the physical development stage the children were at and included scissors that were activated by using the whole pam to push down, scissors that are designed to support limited grip strength and self-opening scissors for children who have progressed on to being able to isolate their index finger and thumb.
Our new scissors have transformed our provision, no longer do we find children frustrated and giving up. No longer do we have children feeling failure. They use scissors that they can successfully manipulate independently whilst we put our efforts into planning an environment and opportunities to support the fine and gross motor skill development required to be able to use a standard pair of scissors.’
