My First Book of Cutting

My mom always said, give your kids a pair of scissors and they'll be happy for hours. She was right, but even more so with this book. When my oldest was in pre-K, the teachers encouraged us to have her cut, color, and draw at home to develop fine motor control and hand strength, as pre-writing skills. This book gives your kids something fun to cut, and by the end, they're cutting much more complex configurations, without pain. Highly recommended! The only thing not to like about this book is why, at almost $7, could they not have perforated the pages?! I've bought coloring books at the dollar store with perforated pages. I'd take off a star for this, but the book itself rates 6 stars in my book... My 3 yr old daughter is almost done with this book now, and we'll be getting more Kumon books - and that great Chicken Socks cutting book, too.

Most children are fascinated with scissors and love to use them, yet they really have very little in their lives they can meaninfully cut. So what happens? Mom's magazine gets snipped to ribbons, baby sister or the dog get an amateur barber job, maybe they become a fashion designer: "I think my pants would be better as shorts!" Thankfully Kumon has come to the rescue and has come up with a book for children that they CAN cut, have fun with, and mom won't be upset! I reviewed Kumon's First Steps Series LET'S CUT PAPER, and that is the good FIRST book for cutting. Once your child has done that one, then there is this book with 40 wonderful, colorful pages to cut! Kumon recommends MY FIRST BOOK OF CUTTING for ages 3-4-5, but I can tell you it is great for an older child too. There are many children who are a bit delayed in developing such fine motor skills such as handling a pair of scissors. My son is 8 years old and loves this book. It is not babyish at all, is very fun and has given him much needed practice in cutting. PLEASE!! Do your child a favor by giving him, along with this book, a GOOD pair of scissors! Cheap scissors abound for children, and if given those, their projects will looked chewed, and not cut. Both Fiskars and Crayola make very nice scissors for children. We have been using Crayola, with all metal blades, and get very good results. Okay, what are the projects to cut in this book? Well,the first are simple, cutting vertically from the bottom of the page along thick grey lines...cut and stop at when you reach the fruit, the flag, or the building. The next ones are printed horizontally on the page, but still a child will no doubt hold the paper so they are cutting vertically. Project #6 is cutting along the teeth of 2 combs. #8-#11 are having the children cut diagonal lines, and some change direction. #12 is cutting a pentagon shape, which is of a cuckoo clock. #13 goes back to zig zag lines as you cut each floor of the buildings.#14 is fun, cut out a girl on her rectangle bed and cover her with the rectangle blanket you cut out.#15 has you cut apart the squares of the chocolate bar! There are pages for cutting out various objects: the sun, a fox, sandwiches, a hamburger on a plate, sport balls, a pine tree, a bunch of bananas, etc. There is a paper necklace to cut out, a rainbow to snip into separate colors, and the end projects are cutting out animals and vehicles, when folded on the dotted line, become 2 sided and will stand on the table. Really fun and cute, not babyish, and any child would love this book! Once your child has mastered the cutting in this book, they would probably also enjoy Kumon's MY BOOK OF PASTING, MY BOOK OF PASTING: JIGSAW PUZZLES, and MY BOOK OF EASY CRAFTS. Unsure of what gift to get a child who seems to have everything? Give this book, and a pair of good scissors, and you will have given them many joyful,creative hours. I don't know how anyone could not like this book...enjoy!

I bought this book for my 3 1/2 year old daughter, and she completed it in about 3 weeks. She looked forward to each page, and seemed to especially enjoy getting the certificate at the end (this is our first Kumon book). She even played with the shapes she cut out afterwards for several days. My only suggestion would be that it would be easier to remove the pages if the left hand margin were perforated. Otherwise, a very worthwhile and fun book for kiddos!

We like the Kumon books very much. We have several including My First Book of Cutting. My 3 year old was evaluated at preschool and did great on everything except cutting, so I immediately ordered this book since he had enjoyed the Tracing and Uppercase Letters workbooks. He loves it! We do 2-3 pages per sitting and he is already getting much better at his cutting skills and we're only about 15 pages into the book. My only complaint is that it is designed for right-handed cutters since the little arrows & scissors start from the right side of the page. My son is left-handed so I have him flip the paper over so he follows the arrows from left to right instead of vice versa.

I love the Kumon series books, but what is more important is that my son loves the Kumon series books. The book goes step by step in buiding the confidence of the child in a given skill. The pages are visually appealing, and much better quality than most workbooks. My son is 4 1/2 and we are currently working on the "My First Cutting Book" and "Number Games 1 - 70". We have brought others in the series, but I am waiting to start them. They require writing numbers or letters and we are working the foundation of these skills through "Handwriting without tears" series. The "Big Workbooks" contain all of the skills in one workbook, but they don't go step by step or as in depth as the Kumon series does. When all of the individual books are added together they are going to cost more than the big workbooks, but it is worth the money.