The Bear Tabletop Basket is used for practicing cutting. For this basket you will need to have enough copies for each student. I always put all the handouts in the basket when I am prepping the baskets at the beginning of the week so I don’t have to worry about making sure I remember where I put the handouts, etc. The key to being an organized teacher isn’t ACTUALLY being organized, it is all about preparation. You want your prep time to be minimal, and you don’t ever want to have to go hunting for stuff, so the more you can do at once the better. You will also need scissors in the basket. Enough for every person to have their own pair.

The scissor tabletop is just to practice beginning cutting skills at first, but by the third week, we will introduce simple pasting as well. The handouts we have here at teachable method are designed to grow with your students each week, and require no work on your part. But, if you want to make your own, you just need to make sheets that have dotted lines for the kids to cut along so that they can practice their cutting skills.

Before you just hand scissors to kindergarteners, it is a good idea to have a BIG talk about their proper use. Believe it or not, you will have students that have never used scissors before, and will need to be shown the proper way to hold them, etc. The most important thing the students need to take away from the scissor discussion is that scissors are ONLY used to cut paper in the classroom. I try to always go through a big long list of all the things we can think of ALL around the classroom that you should not cut with scissors, and I explain to the children that if they choose to cut anything but paper with their scissors, then they will have to sit out during scissor time while we finish up our tabletop centers.

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