Why "Pre-cutting" Cuts Out Learning: A Common Mistake Made in Preschool Art

Product art is artwork that is intended to produce a specific product. You'll often see rows of jack-o-lanterns or sail boats, for example, hanging in preschools.

Process art focuses on the process of creating art using a variety of mediums. The process, or the experience itself, is the focus rather than a specific end product. Examples of process art include finger painting or creating collages without an end product in mind. Consider it freestyle art.

Product art is not without value.

Often product art represents a learning theme and preschool teachers are reinforcing concepts such as colors and shapes as these products are constructed. They are also providing opportunities for young children to use fine motor and eye hand coordination skills while gluing, cutting or arranging objects. With an end product in mind, children are learning to follow directions.

There are several common mistakes made when using product art as an activity in preschools, or for that matter in family time, churches, elementary schools or home-schools. This article will cover one of those common mistakes and offer several remedies.

Common Mistake: Pre-cutting All of the Parts for the Children

Even though product art has value, this is a common mistake that reduces or omits learning opportunities. It also takes away the pride of "I did this myself."

Too often preschool teachers precut all of the parts for a product.

One argument may be that the children do not have the skills to do the cutting themselves. Cutting is a skill that they need to practice and will not learn when not given the opportunity to try. Yes, it takes longer but this is time well spent. No one ever learned to master cutting by reading a book or watching or video. It takes experience. Obviously, young children should always be well supervised when using scissors. Also, please be aware of handedness of each child and provide left-handed scissors when needed.

Remedies for Success:

Create products that allow young learners to "fringe." Fringing is a great beginning cutting activity that allows opportunities for success because cuts need not be uniform. For example, if your product is a toothbrush, let kids fringe a white rectangle to create the bristles. If the product is person's face, allow them to fringe the hair. A lion's mane, a horse's mane or tail, rays of a sunshine or flower petals are good examples of products that can be fringed.

Create products that allow for cutting straight lines. Before kids can move scissors at angles or in circles, they must master cutting straight lines. One of my favorite projects for giving kids the opportunity to create strips is to create an American flag. Perhaps teachers will cut the blue square for the corner and offer star stickers. The red stripes are perfect for allowing kids to cut down the line. Some will be more masterful than others. It doesn't matter if the stripes are straight. They are learning. It also doesn't matter if one child adds cuts out ten and another only finishes two. They will be proud of their efforts. Other ideas for using straight-line cutting are flower stems, arms or legs, black strips for streets or black stripes for bees, zebras or tigers.

Choose at least one "part" for kids to cut themselves. Often it would be too taxing on young learners to cut all of the needed parts for a product art project but whenever teachers sit down to precut pieces, they should find at least one opportunity for every child to cut something out for themselves for the final product. This will also ensure that each product will be unique.

Creates products in stages. I know that schedules are challenging for preschoolers. Teachers have to allow time for both creation and clean up and work this in between potty breaks, snacks, meals and naps. Resist the temptation to feel that your students must produce a product at each group time. As adult workers we most often work on projects in stages and complete them over a period of time. Allow for children to work on some projects over several days so that they can do more of the work themselves.

Allow for Cutting in Process Art Projects as well. Process art projects take all the pressure off of the students and teachers as children practice cutting. In a process art time, there is absolutely no failure because there is no product in mind. There are simply a variety of materials that may include construction paper but could also include paper plates, newspapers, magazine pages, paper bags or tissue paper. Children are given the opportunity to practice cutting and display their success in a variety of ways. They could glue it onto paper or paper plate or even "stuff" a paper lunch bag that is then turned into another product such as a pumpkin. Their cuttings could even be put into a plastic bag hung under a note that says, "I'm Learning to Cut," or how about "We've Really Been Cutting Up in Class Today."

By no means is this article intended to "cut down" preschooler teachers. I've been one in the classroom, I play one at home and I have great admiration for those who serve in this important role at this crucial time in children's lives. I offer these tips as my gift to those who share their gifts with young children. Happy teaching!