My kids are always asking me to cut out hearts for them, “I just can’t do it” they say! So today I taught them how to cut out a symmetrical heart using this little trick below. Now we’ve got hearts all over the place, ready for Valentine’s Day projects!
Supplies for Cutting Hearts:
- paper, any kind – cut into small squares, as it’s easier to fold and cut with little hands
- pencil
- scissors – best to have child scissors for them to practice
Fold your small paper in half and using your pencil, draw a half of a heart on the folded side.
Here’s what it looks like if you do it on the wrong side. It’s good to show this to your kids, letting them know how important it is to draw on the folded side of the paper.
Let your kids cut out the hearts on the fold, following the pencil line.
My daughter, 4 years old, loved cutting these out and did a pretty good job. My son, 7 years old, was able to draw his own half hearts and then cut them out. We now have hearts-a-plenty, looking like we’ve had a bit of a Heart-Attack!!
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
This is an idea I’ve used successfully for years. Last year I had to change it a little because I had a child that didn’t like the fold line – they wanted a flat heart. We have lots of recycled copy paper, so I had them fold and make a heart the size they wanted. Now I had them open it up, lay down on the ‘good’ paper and trace around it. Now they could cut out a flat heart. It was a simple extra step, but solved what had become a real issue for this child. Success was worth the little extra time. Hope this helps anyone else that might have children with a strong need for flat hearts.
great tip!
ps. I loooove the new haircut! so cute! You will love the ease too.
This would be a perfect precursor to adding cutouts to the hearts to hang on a tree. We made a Valentine Heart Tree recently; I should really let my kids loose to make them completely on their own!
Here is the prototype (but shame on me, I cut out the hearts!):
http://roots-of-simplicity.blogspot.com/2010/02/craft-of-week-colorful-cutout-paper.html