Independent cutting is a fine motor skill that facilitates children's transition to school and enhances their hand and finger dexterity. The ability to handle scissors safely is fundamental for numerous classroom activities. Unfortunately, children are increasingly struggling with their fine motor skills as they spend more time in front of the television, for example. It is advisable to encourage cutting, painting, crafting and gluing at home. Craft projects are a great opportunity to improve your child's cutting skills and encourage them to enjoy their own creativity. Make sure you choose scissors that are suitable for your child's age. Small and lightweight children's scissors with rounded tips make cutting easier and are a good choice to avoid injuries. Talk to your child about the safe use and proper storage of scissors. Show them how to hold and use scissors properly. Coloring books, children's magazines and catalogs are great for cutting out favorite pictures. To motivate your child, stretch a cord from wall to wall at their eye level for displaying cut-out drawings and pictures. Alternatively, use a large cork board to showcase your child's creative ideas for years to come. Admire your child's work, as this creates positive experiences for your child. Sometimes take some time and do crafts together with your child to develop their skills and spend valuable time together.

Cutting a wind spiral
A creative way to improve your child's cutting skills is to make a wind spiral. Have you ever made a wind spiral with your child? Give it a try! It's fun and develops dexterity in the hands. Cutting in a circular pattern presents a challenge, requiring good coordination between both hands. First draw a circle on colored cardboard or newspaper. Use a plate or another round object for this. Then draw a spiral from the outside to the inside with wide spacing. The child cuts out the spiral from the edge of the circle towards the center. Cutting out the spiral provides a sensory experience that challenges your child's coordination and dexterity with the scissors. Finally, make a small hole in the center of the spiral with a needle and attach a string for hanging. Together with your child, hang the resulting wind chime outside or in front of a window. In addition to cutting, activities such as painting, drawing, doing puzzles, kneading, building and much more will develop your child's fine motor skills.

Tying a knot or a bow is often a challenge for preschool children. However, trying out new things strengthens self-confidence and independence. Children are often expected to have these skills by the time they start school. Normally, children develop the dexterity needed to tie a knot and a bow from the age of four. However, some children's fine motor skills are not yet sufficiently developed and they may not be able to tie a knot until later. Parents usually play a key role in teaching their children this skill. Start with a simple knot before teaching your child to tie a bow. It usually proves easier for children to practice tying knots on a stuffed animal or a favorite doll first, rather than on their own clothes or shoes. Use a long ribbon or woolen thread because shorter threads slip out of the hands more easily. Ask your child if they are familiar with tying a knot. If they don't immediately succeed in tying a knot, show your child the necessary steps. It is easier for children to follow the hand movements if you are sitting next to or behind them. Learning to tie a knot is more difficult when children sit opposite their parents and see your movements mirrored. As soon as your child succeeds in tying the knot, encourage them to try it on their own shoes. Please note that learning to tie a knot is a process that requires patience and might not be achieved on the first day. With repeated practice and your support, your child will soon be able to master this skill. After that, also show your child the individual steps to tie a bow.

Most preschool children wear shoes with hook-and-loop fasteners. However, it is advisable to also teach them how to tie their shoes so that they learn to tie a bow. Shoe tying presents a fine motor challenge and promotes children's dexterity. Good fine motor skills make it easier in everyday life to cut and fold paper, grasp small objects or color a picture, for example. When starting school, good fine motor skills also make it easier to write letters and children are more independent if they know how to tie a bow. Children usually have the dexterity to tie a bow from the age of four or five. However, some children only manage to tie their shoes at the age of six because their fine motor skills are not yet sufficiently developed.

Learning through practice
It is easier for the child if the bow is practiced on an adult shoe or a self-made shoe template. To do this, draw the outline of a child's shoe on cardboard and punch holes in the template in the appropriate places. Thread a shoelace through it as you would with a real shoe. Sit behind or next to the child so that it is easier for the child to follow your movements. Learning the bow is more difficult if you sit in front of the child and they see the shoe tying process mirrored. Although the following procedure requires a little more skill, it enables loops that hold. The prerequisite is that your child knows how to tie a knot. The instructions are as follows: First tie a knot. Make a loop with the right shoelace and hold it with your thumb and index finger. Then place the left shoelace from front to back around the loop and thread it through the opening above the knot to form another loop. Pull the loop out until it is the same size as the other loop. Finally, tighten both loops. Left-handers usually start with the left loop and then form the right loop. Remember that patience and perseverance are key when your child is learning to tie their shoes. With your positive support, your child learns that with a bit of perseverance, every challenge is overcome.

Folding paper is a creative activity in which children use their imagination to form three-dimensional shapes such as ships, airplanes or hats from a flat sheet of paper. This creative process promotes the child's spatial and mathematical thinking and enables basic experiences with geometric shapes and symmetry. For example, a triangle is formed when the child folds a square from one corner to the other. If the child folds a rectangle in the middle, both parts lie exactly on top of each other. Folding paper stimulates both hemispheres of the brain because it requires coordination between the eye and the right and left hand. When folding paper, children experience through their own actions how a flat sheet of paper transforms into a three-dimensional object by changing its shape and size. This promotes the ability to imagine things before they are actually created and improves the understanding of spatial thinking and three-dimensionality. At the same time, folding is a great way to practice fine motor skills. If you are looking for an environmentally friendly option for folding, old magazines and newspapers are a sustainable alternative. Children will need your help to understand the folding shapes. First show your child the finished result, and then fold the shape together. Ask your child to sit next to you so they see the folding steps from the same perspective. Show and explain each step as the child folds the corresponding shape. Your verbal guidance is crucial to lead the child through each step. Use terms such as ›middle and half‹, ›corner to corner‹, ›inside and outside‹, ›right and left‹, ›top and bottom‹, ›edge and tip‹ and ›opposite‹. The experience of paper folding encourages creativity and also creates precious moments between you and your child. What's more, there is great joy when children fold paper airplanes together with their parents and then let them race through the air.

When starting school, it is advantageous if children are able to write their name in capital letters. This makes it easier for the child to find or hand in drawings, worksheets or exercise books during the first lessons and thus relieves the teacher. However, a little practice and patience is required to write their own name successfully. Start by having the child look for individual letters in everyday life, for example in large headings in books, on packaging or while shopping. Draw the child's attention to the relevant letter by saying: »This is an M and the first letter of your name. Find another M on this book page.« Remember to pronounce the letter M simply as the sound ›m‹, and the F as ›f‹, not ›em‹ or ›ef‹. To practice writing individual letters, first draw the respective letter as large as possible in the air together with the child several times. Show the child the correct writing direction by saying it out loud. Then write the letter in large letters on a blank sheet of paper. Give the child two or three colored pencils and encourage them to trace the letter shape. Make sure that the letter shapes are written in the correct direction by pointing this out to the child. The child then tries to write the letter themselves several times. Be happy together about any progress and support your child in their attempts to write.

It makes sense to teach children how to use glue properly to prepare them for starting school. When cutting and gluing, children develop important fine motor skills that are crucial for many school activities and also stimulate creativity and imagination. At the same time, hands-on crafting experiences teach children to handle materials responsibly by carefully closing and cleaning up the glue after use. Show your child how to spread the glue sparingly and evenly by spreading it from the centre of the surface to be glued outwards. Too much glue in one place will cause the surface to be glued to slip easily. Give your child the opportunity to experiment with solid and liquid glue. Using a brush makes applying liquid glue easier. Ensure that all materials used, especially glues and scissors, are child-friendly. For younger children, it is always advisable to supervise the use of these materials to ensure their safety and proper use of the materials. To keep the work area clean, simply place newspaper on the table surface. In this way, your child will learn to keep the work area clean. When adults teach children to handle materials such as paper, scissors and glue with care, they are less distracted by mess or damaged materials later in class and can concentrate better on the tasks at hand.

It makes sense to teach children how to use glue properly to prepare them for starting school. When cutting and gluing, children develop important fine motor skills that are crucial for many school activities and also stimulate creativity and imagination. At the same time, hands-on crafting experiences teach children to handle materials responsibly by carefully closing and cleaning up the glue after use. Show your child how to spread the glue sparingly and evenly by spreading it from the centre of the surface to be glued outwards. Too much glue in one place will cause the surface to be glued to slip easily. Give your child the opportunity to experiment with solid and liquid glue. Using a brush makes applying liquid glue easier. Ensure that all materials used, especially glues and scissors, are child-friendly. For younger children, it is always advisable to supervise the use of these materials to ensure their safety and proper use of the materials. To keep the work area clean, simply place newspaper on the table surface. In this way, your child will learn to keep the work area clean. When adults teach children to handle materials such as paper, scissors and glue with care, they are less distracted by mess or damaged materials later in class and can concentrate better on the tasks at hand.