Easy Flower Cutting Tray for Scissor Skills

Every parent who has had a kid take scissors to their hair, couch cushion or dog’s fur (yes… it happens) may cringe at the title of this activity. But believe it or not, the more we encourage our kids to use scissors in a safe and appropriate way, the more responsible they are with them. That’s why our flower cutting tray for preschool is the perfect way to practice scissor skills in a contained and safe environment. Add this easy activity to your flower projects for preschool.

photo collage showing a flower cutting sensory bin for kids.

Recommended Grade Level:

Preschool

Supply List
Coordinating Activities

Scissor Skills Flower Cutting Spring Sensory Bin Supplies:

Scissors
Flowers
Bin/Tray

Find Coordinating Resources

Fine Motor, Flowers, Grade Levels, Holidays and Seasons, Motor Skills, Preschool/Pre-K, Sensory Activities, Sensory Bin, Spring, Themes

Scissor Skills Flower Cutting Tray for Spring

Spring brings flowers, that’s a given. So finding ways to bring them into your classroom is a great way to engage students with the seasons and world around them. This Scissor Skills Flower Cutting Tray for Spring is also the perfect thing to incorporate in a unit about flowers, plants, gardens, or a spring-themed unit!

The important and varying aspect of this Scissor Skills Flower Cutting Tray for Spring is the benefit of using scissors. Using scissors is an important skill to practice for many reasons! It builds hand strength, allows for autonomous work later down the line, and helps develop coordination! So bringing scissors into this sensory bin is a great way to encourage fine motor growth AND develop independent scissors skills for future arts and crafts. Yes, you could do a sensory bin with flowers and add sand, rice or water. But the addition of the scissors brings a different aspect of the sensory bin to life and allows for new skills to be unlocked.

Need MORE Sensory Bin Ideas? check out our favorites here:

Materials You Will Need for the Flower Cutting Tray

Bin or tray
Flowers
Scissors

a pair of scissors and a bunch of uncut flowers in a wooden tray.

Step-by-Step Instructions for the Flower Cutting Tray

Step One:

One of the absolute best parts of sensory play is how little prep-time they take! (We love activities that don’t take a million years or items to get ready!) All you need to create this flower cutting tray is to lay the bin down, and get the flowers and scissors out. Boom. Done.

a child using scissors to cut flower stems in a spring sensory bin.

Step Two:

You can challenge students to begin cutting the flowers to different lengths. Ask them questions about what they feel as they cut through different parts of the flower. Are you having to push harder on the stem than the petals? Why do you think that might be?!

Teacher Tip: I always scoot the trashcan to the side of the table where we are doing this spring flower cutting tray! The tiny cut scraps are much more likely to get swept into the trashcan if students don’t have to bring them from point a to point b!

a child cutting flowers in a wooden tray.

Step Three:

You can continue to add different types of flowers, stems and even grass to this flower cutting tray! It isn’t over until you and your students decide they are all done!

a spring sensory bin with cut up flowers.

Yay! You did it. What Now?

Sensory bins are not great for display, and this fine motor flower cutting tray is not exception. It’s not one that’s meant to be displayed or sent home- so it feels appropriate to compost or toss the snipped flowers!

Ways to Adapt the Fine Motor Flower Cutting Tray

Mix it up: Give your students different materials so they can compare the different pressures they will use with different types of flowers. You can compare sunflowers to grass, carnations to dandelions and even real flowers to fake flowers!
Encourage Writing: You can have students compare the different parts of the flowers that they cut- and use sensory themed words to describe them.
Just add water: You can increase the sensory input by adding water to your sensory flower bin! Check out our Easy Flower Soup Spring Sensory Bin For Kids!
Use the cut flowers to create a beautiful work of art! This paper plate flower wreath is a great way to use the cut flowers.

Why Focus on Scissor Skills?

Working with preschoolers for as long as I did, I know how important sensory development is. Strong fingers and hand skills are needed when tying shoes, brushing teeth, getting dressed, and writing! (Our scissor skills printable can give even the littlest fingers the practice they need!)

Children are naturally curious about everything around them– as we have learned from them cutting their own hair, their doll’s hair and even the hair of their siblings… scissors arent exempt from the things they want to use and understand. Learning how to properly use scissors can benefit them in many ways.

Frequently Asked Questions

These are frequently asked questions about Flower Scissors Sensory Bin:

Can we use different kinds of scissors?

So many classrooms come with teachers who have a set of wavy-lined or patterned scissors. You can absolutely add them to your flower cutting sensory bins.

What kind of flowers are best?

One of the awesome things about this flower-cutting sensory bin- there is no “best”! All flowers will provide a different sensory input to the students- so you can use whatever you have outside!

If you have students who would benefit from some scissor practice, and you have some grass, weeds or flowers on hand- this is the perfect easy and beneficial sensory tray for you!

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