This is one of my favourite ways to help develop fine motor skills; giving children the chance to become hairdresser for the day, they can enjoy trimming and snipping all whilst practicing using scissors.
These cute little faces are so simple to make, you just need some card, a hole punch and a marker pen, plus it's a great way of recycling boxes.
Perfect for preschoolers, little ones can let their imaginations take over and decide how to "style" their little cardboard characters.
And the best thing about this activity is you can replace the wool and start all over again!
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To make the crazy haircuts you will need:
- Thin cardboard (such as a cereal box)
- Marker pen
- Scissors
Start by drawing rough face shapes on the card - you will need the tops to be along the straight edges of the card so you can give them hair. You can make just one or two but bear in mind you will need to replace the hair more quickly the less faces there are to cut. We managed to draw and cut out six from the piece of card we had.
Give your faces some features - we gave all of ours smiley happy faces, but you could give them a range of different expressions - it would make a great talking point for learning about emotions.
Take your single hole punch and create even holes along the straight edges of your faces, making sure they have a little gap in between - you should be able to get 5 or 6 depending on the size of the face.
Now you can add your wool hair! You can use any colour wool you fancy - we went for rainbow colours as we are rainbow addicts in this house.
Cut wool into lengths around 20cm long, fold in half, and push the looped end through a hole. Pass the other end of the wool through then pull tight. Repeat for each of the holes and for all the faces.
It's time for the fun bit! Give your little one some scissors and invite them to give the faces a haircut. You might want to spend a little time playing with them and styling it first, or you can get stuck right in!
Mr 6 really enjoyed snipping the pieces of wool to different sizes. His first head got a very short crop, which he thought was hilarious!
He said, it's a bit like my hair mummy! He wasn't far wrong, it did need a bit of a trim post lockdown 😂
He found it a little tricky cutting them upright as the hair flopped down, so he turned them over to get some help from gravity. This is a great example of how play can encourage problem-solving skills.
Mr 6 had so much fun and didn't stop until he'd snipped his way through all six haircuts!
What I love about these little faces is that once you're done you can re-thread them with wool and start cutting all over again.
Have you tried crazy haircuts? What's your favourite activity for developing fine motor skills? Leave me a comment!
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