One Scrap Challenge

Crafts and cutting activities are beneficial for kindergartners and a lot of fun. They help with developing fine motor skills, using supplies appropriately, creativity, following directions, and many other skills that will continue to be utilized throughout school and life. The students and I always enjoy this types of activities until it is time to clean up. Somehow there are millions of scraps of paper ranging from teeny tiny to large all over the tables and floor. Many of these tiny pieces are camouflaged on the speckled tiles in the classroom, so the clean up task becomes so much harder! 

Well, in teaching sometimes you stumble across the most magical solutions to these problems. I mean after years of trying to teach how to properly use scissors: 

1. keep your thumb in the smaller opening in the handle 

2. fingers in the larger opening in the handle 

3. make sure your thumb stays on top, closer to the ceiling 

4. hold the paper with your other hand with your thumb on top 

6. hold close to the area you are cutting 

7. cut carefully on the line 

8. ALWAYS cut away from your body 

9. turn the paper not the scissors 

9. cut along the outside first to leave only one scrap

10. ONLY CUT PAPER

I finally said the magical words that are keep our classroom floor scrap-free! I call it the 'One Scrap Challenge!' Basically, everything I have been modeling for years has clicked because of the way I whispered the challenge to them this year. They were hooked! Would they be able to cut out the pieces with only one scrap left over to recycle?!? 

They did a fantastic job, and there were so many thrilled faces because they took their time, stayed on the line, and were left with just ONE SCRAP to recycle! The next day, they reminded me of the one scrap challenge to see if they could do it again. Incredible, talk about some intrinsic motivation to improve our cutting skills!