Wavy cuts

Occupational therapy

﻿Hi, I'm really looking forward to our lesson today. I hope you are too. Before we get started, this is just a little reminder. We're here to support any approaches you might already be using, and any work you might have already been sent. We know that this lesson is going to be going out to so many different children and families. So if you're not sure about anything or have any questions, then please do contact your usual therapy team. Hello, today because you've done so well with cutting straight lines, I thought that we could have a go at practising cutting wavy lines or more irregular shapes. I'm looking forward to this lesson. Please note, in this lesson, we will be using scissors. So please, make sure you are sitting down to do your cutting. Make sure an adult is always with you while you are cutting. Cut away from your body. Carefully watch what you are cutting. Always hold scissors by the handles and not the blades. Don't run, while holding scissors. And only cut things which an adult has said is okay to cut. So, you've become really good at cutting straight lines, now we want to cut wavy lines. And, why is it important that we practise cutting out wavy lines? Well, wavy and curly lines are a bit more challenging and the more we practise them, the better we're going to get at controlling our scissors. We have to use more skills and think about more things at the same time. So we have to aim the scissors more carefully and turn the paper while we cut. Most things we cut won't even be straight lines. And that's why getting good at cutting curvy lines will help us with all sorts of shapes that will come up so, like a flower. Or for Valentine's Day, you might have to cut out a heart or Christmas, you might want to cut out a bobble. So, for today's lesson, I want you to pause the video and go and get several pieces of paper, some scissors, and a thick marker pen. If you find cutting tricky, then you can get thinner pieces of paper. And if you want to give yourself a challenge, then you can get, thicker pieces of paper. Re-start once you've got everything ready. Okay. For our first activity we're going to be, cutting out waves. So, I want you to draw wavy patterns along the paper or you can ask an adult to do that for you with a thick pen. Take your scissors and try to cut along this line, sticking as close to it as you can throughout. And you're going to use your hand to turn the paper as you go along, okay? You can make it more challenging or trickier by having a thinner line or making the waves bigger and more complicated. So in this video you can see that I'm once again using my index finger as my power finger, for cutting out my waves. My thumbs are on top of the paper. So as we say, thumbs up. So thumbs on top. And notice how, I'm just very carefully turning the paper with one hand. Okay, so, your thumbs are pointing upwards, holding the paper. My shoulders are nice and relaxed. My elbows are close to my body. And I'm using my hands, one is just slightly turning the paper, holding it and cutting with the other one. Okay? Now you can see that I'm not cutting exactly on the line, but I still think I'm doing a pretty good job. Okay. And turn, turn, turn, turn, turn. And remember, it's really important that you go slowly, 'cause if you go too fast and you rush, you may end up cutting off a really important bit of your picture, which would be not as fast, I thought it would just be really annoying. And then remember as I said, if you want to give yourself a challenge, try making bigger waves, and cutting those out. Because that means you're going to have to really think about cutting for a long time before you have to turn, okay? So you can keep going, turn, right. And you can see that if my index finger is really, giving a lot of power by being under there and a lot of stability, okay? There we go. Turn, turn, turn. And now, sometimes what you can do is a sneaky little cut straight across, which means that you do less turns. And this is especially helpful if you have a really long picture or big picture to cut out, 'cause then you cut straight and then there are fewer turns to do. Okay? So there, have a look at that. And you can see on my cutting hand, my thumb is tucked in quite nicely. And there you go. Pause the video, to try cutting out waves. Re-start once you're finished. For the next activity we're going to make a scissor maze. So, ask an adult to draw a path through a sheet of paper for you, making sure it's got loads of lots of windy turns. And then you're going to take your scissors and try and cut through along the path through the two, lines that you've drawn. And your non-dominant hand, your helping hand is going to help turn the paper as you go along. And you can make this much more tricky. Sorry guys. By making the lines closer together or adding more twists and turns. So what you can see here, is that I have cut out, I have drawn, a maze path. So remember ask, if you find this too tricky, you can ask an adult or carer or someone who is good at drawing, to draw this maze for you. And then you're going to draw another line so as to create a path, okay? And, this is quite tricky so be really careful and remember, it's much better to be careful and slow, rather than to rush. Yeah? The slower you go, the more practise you're actually getting. And you can see there. And you have to make adjustments the whole time. Turning. Okay? Turn, turn, turn. Good, here we go. Turn, turn, turn. And again you can see I'm going, quite slowly, but that's because I want to be careful. And I don't want to cut through my path. And, once you're able to do something like this, you can then draw a picture of, say a house. And then on the back of it, you can make some wavy patterns, cut them out, and you've made your own jigsaw puzzle, how clever is that? Okay? So you can see it's to becoming trickier. I'm turning the paper. And remember, as I said, to make this easier, you can start off on thicker card and don't forget about all the differences as I said you could use the ones with the forehand or using the left handed scissors. There are loads of things out there to make cutting easier, and to suit our own level. Oh I think this bit look a little bit here I really struggled with. You can do it Aniesa. There's lots of turning and twists and paper like all over the shape. So it's really important, all those lessons we did earlier about using both hands together. Okay? We're almost at the end. Wow. And this is the really cool bit. "Cause what you end up with, is two bits of paper, that's really funky. Okay? Pause the video now to try cutting out waves. Re-start once you're finished. To cut out a circle, you simply have to, draw a circle on a piece of paper, with a thick pen. Okay? You are going to take your scissors. Remember, if you put your finger there, that's where the power is. And then you're going to cut out your circle. Okay? So, have a look. And am turning the paper. And you'll find that you either, because I'm holding it up high, I've actually put my elbows on the table, but sometimes you might find it easier to put your hands on the table. And that's fine too. Okay? So, you'll have to cut in from the edge to reach the circle and then you're going to cut it out. And again, we can make this harder by making the line thinner and trying to cut out different sizes of circles, or you can even make similar shapes like an oval. So, cutting out more complicated shapes. So you can either draw yourself a complicated shape where there are lots of curves and waves on it, or ask an adult to do this for you. So, a good example, is a head with ears and some hair or a flower with petals. And, then you are going to try and cut the shape out as carefully as you can. You could also, fold the paper over several times before drawing your shape from one side to the other. And then you could have like a paper chain of like a big pattern. So we said we can cut out, a load of more complicated shapes. So what I'm doing here is, I'm taking a piece of paper and I folded it just into fours so you can fold it into more bits. And this means that the paper is thicker so we're working harder, which means our muscles are going to get stronger. And, remember I said you can draw a shape or a pattern across that piece of paper. So this is what's happened here, or what I've done here. And this is a little bit harder so gradually, work up to having more than just like two or three layers. And this is why it's so important to have that index finger over there, to really give you the power to cut through thicker card or thicker paper. And, there we go. It's kind of like some weird teeth or something. So, really useful for quickly creating decorations or waves or wavy patterns, anything like that. Pause the video to try cutting out some more complicated shapes If you'd like, share your work, with Oak National by asking your parent or your carer, to go to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter and tag @OakNational and #LearnwithOak. Thanks for listening.

Wavy cuts

Wavy cuts

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