Flower Cutting and Fine Motor Skills

My 4 y/o daughter loves flowers and enjoys wandering in our front and back yard picking them.  Some flowers she can easily pluck off with her fingers but our Black Eyed Susan flowers require something more to get the flower off.  I saw this as an opportunity to let her use her scissors, with my supervision of course.  By no means should a child ever be left unattended with scissors.  I went over the safety rules of using scissors by explaining how to safely hold scissors when walking with them in your hand and that you should never use scissors to cut anything other than paper unless your are doing a craft/activity with Mom, Dad, Teacher or another adult.  We also use scissors appropriate for children which are not as sharp as regular scissors.

This cutting activity helped with her fine motor skills and is also a practical life lesson.  We even got a short lesson on bees since we have these beautiful white and purple flowers, which I don't know the name of, but the bees love them.  This gave us the chance to talk about bees and how they get nectar from the flower and bring it back to the hive to make honey.

After my daughter is finished cutting the flowers I always make sure to display them!