My First Book Of Cutting (Kumon Workbooks)

Most children are fascinated with scissors and love to use them, yet they really have very little in their lives they can meaninfully cut. So what happens? Mom's magazine gets snipped to ribbons, baby sister or the dog get an amateur barber job, maybe they become a fashion designer: "I think my pants would be better as shorts!" Thankfully Kumon has come to the rescue and has come up with a book for children that they CAN cut, have fun with, and mom won't be upset!

I reviewed Kumon's First Steps Series LET'S CUT PAPER, and that is the good FIRST book for cutting. Once your child has done that one, then there is this book with 40 wonderful, colorful pages to cut! Kumon recommends MY FIRST BOOK OF CUTTING for ages 3-4-5, but I can tell you it is great for an older child too. There are many children who are a bit delayed in developing such fine motor skills such as handling a pair of scissors. My son is 8 years old and loves this book. It is not babyish at all, is very fun and has given him much needed practice in cutting.

PLEASE!! Do your child a favor by giving him, along with this book, a GOOD pair of scissors! Cheap scissors abound for children, and if given those, their projects will looked chewed, and not cut. Both Fiskars and Crayola make very nice scissors for children. We have been using Crayola, with all metal blades, and get very good results.

Okay, what are the projects to cut in this book? Well,the first are simple, cutting vertically from the bottom of the page along thick grey lines...cut and stop at when you reach the fruit, the flag, or the building. The next ones are printed horizontally on the page, but still a child will no doubt hold the paper so they are cutting vertically. Project #6 is cutting along the teeth of 2 combs. #8-#11 are having the children cut diagonal lines, and some change direction. #12 is cutting a pentagon shape, which is of a cuckoo clock. #13 goes back to zig zag lines as you cut each floor of the buildings.#14 is fun, cut out a girl on her rectangle bed and cover her with the rectangle blanket you cut out.#15 has you cut apart the squares of the chocolate bar! There are pages for cutting out various objects: the sun, a fox, sandwiches, a hamburger on a plate, sport balls, a pine tree, a bunch of bananas, etc. There is a paper necklace to cut out, a rainbow to snip into separate colors, and the end projects are cutting out animals and vehicles, when folded on the dotted line, become 2 sided and will stand on the table. Really fun and cute, not babyish, and any child would love this book! Once your child has mastered the cutting in this book, they would probably also enjoy Kumon's MY BOOK OF PASTING, MY BOOK OF PASTING: JIGSAW PUZZLES, and MY BOOK OF EASY CRAFTS. Unsure of what gift to get a child who seems to have everything? Give this book, and a pair of good scissors, and you will have given them many joyful,creative hours. I don't know how anyone could not like this book...enjoy!

When I purchase a good product for my kids, I rave about it. This was worth rating one star. The fact that the pages are not perforated makes me go from love it to hate it. If you buy the book and read the instructions, you will instantly agree with me. I can't even get the pages out properly for my daughter to use this workbook!! Maybe I got an extremely bad copy (I've sent a note to their customer service) but I can't believe the challenge they have made for parents before kids can even do the workbook. To explain further because you can't see the book, the instructions want you to cut along each page and remove with maybe 1 mm of space between cutting and binder. Not even enough space to get scissors between the line and the binder to cut. I tried tearing, but doesn't work so well in the middle of the page. I am going to take my copy to an office depot to see if they can cut the pages out with a cutting board, but what mom needs another errand to run? Really disappointed, but maybe my expectation were so high because of all the rave reviews, which is why I purchased in the first place. If it was perforated, it would be perfect. Because it isn't, it's one star! (will update my review if I hear back from their customer service.)

Update on 12/16: you have to disassemble the book and break the spine to use the book per customer service. Maybe if I had known that initially that you have to tear apart the book to use it, I would not have rated it so poorly, but it seems the company should fix that by adding perforated pages. My one star rating stands!

My preschool daughter really enjoys the Kumon cutting books. They really help her in her scissor skills.

My one and only complaint is that the pages are extremely difficult to remove from the book. The pages instruct that an adult should cut along the edge of the page to separate the page from the book before giving it to the child. Unfortunately, the book only provides about a half an inch before the content of the page begins. It is impossible to cut the line down the page without cutting into the contents of the page. I had to tear up the entire book and separate all of the pages from the spine of the book just so I could remove the pages easily. It is a bit of a nuisance and unsightly and disorganized.

This problem could have been easily remedied if they'd just perforated the edges of the paper or left plenty of room before beginning the content of the page.

Before purchasing, I read a couple of reviews about the difficulty of cutting out the pages to use and how the directions dont talk about taking the book apart. So I attached some photos so you can see what they meant. I just tok of the cover and the bind kept in tact. I was easily able to tear off the top page. Since it is a progressive book, I can keep the book in the bind without taking it all apart. You can see the pictures get more difficult to cut, starting out with lines and moving on to more complicated shapes.
The paper quality is great, it's easy to tear off the cover and each page afterward, and its attractive and simple. I would recommend it to help your child develop scissor skills.

We like the Kumon books very much. We have several including My First Book of Cutting. My 3 year old was evaluated at preschool and did great on everything except cutting, so I immediately ordered this book since he had enjoyed the Tracing and Uppercase Letters workbooks. He loves it! We do 2-3 pages per sitting and he is already getting much better at his cutting skills and we're only about 15 pages into the book.

My only complaint is that it is designed for right-handed cutters since the little arrows & scissors start from the right side of the page. My son is left-handed so I have him flip the paper over so he follows the arrows from left to right instead of vice versa.

My 3 year old LOVES these worksheets and they start out simple enough at the beginning of the book that he can do them himself and they get more complicated/interesting as he gets more skilled at cutting. I asked for this book as a gift and it is perfect for entertaining my son while I do home school with my 1st grader. We used about 3 worksheets today and they entertained my youngest son for about an hour. :D

I love the Kumon series books, but what is more important is that my son loves the Kumon series books. The book goes step by step in buiding the confidence of the child in a given skill. The pages are visually appealing, and much better quality than most workbooks. My son is 4 1/2 and we are currently working on the "My First Cutting Book" and "Number Games 1 - 70". We have brought others in the series, but I am waiting to start them. They require writing numbers or letters and we are working the foundation of these skills through "Handwriting without tears" series.

The "Big Workbooks" contain all of the skills in one workbook, but they don't go step by step or as in depth as the Kumon series does. When all of the individual books are added together they are going to cost more than the big workbooks, but it is worth the money.

This book is nice, sturdy paper and well thought progression of scissor skills. The pages are also interesting to look at and often appeal to my children.

My five year old has to be dragged through the page, and he becomes frustrated that he cannot complete the practice page perfectly. He is mostly able to cut the page independently as I remind him how to hold the scissors in relationship to the rest of his body and to use his free hand to guide the page. His scissor skills have somewhat progressed with the help of this workbook. (More so the summer task assigned by the teacher of, "work on non-preferred tasks," has been accomplished.)

My barely three year old is eager to cut out this pages. To successfully accomplish a page he does need to sit on my lap as I help guide his hands and instruct, "Big, long bite." This book has helped him transition from aimless snipping with [[ASIN:B0002TMXAY Fiskars Pre-School Spring Action Scissors, Color Received May Vary (93907097)]] to independently cutting a straight-ish line with blunt scissors.

Please Kumon: These pages need to be perforated! The cutting activities are meant to be torn out or cut out by the parent and it is just annoying. Sometimes, I tear the "starting arrow" right off. Otherwise, it's a great book for my home schooling kindergarten student. It builds well from one activity to the next. We do 2 pages/week.

UPDATE: After using this book, I recently purchased a different (cheaper) book that combined cutting, pasting, numbers, colors, etc in one book. I really started to appreciate this Kumon cutting book after I tried the other brand book. Reason: this book really focuses on cutting. The first few assignments are just straight cutting. At first, it seemed boring to me. However, now I see why it's important. Cutting straight is easy. Cutting a longer piece of paper straight is fairly difficult, but it really teaches kids how to cut. I'm seeing this now that I tried teaching a 3-year-old to cut using a different book.

Purchased this for use with a 3-year-old who does not attend preschool, an almost-4-year-old who has attended preschool for 3 years, and a 4-year-old in t-kinder. The book is very easy for the 4-year-old. The other two have difficulty cutting straight lines, but I find that it helps if you remind the children to slow down, and watch how they hold their scissors. Children will hold the scissors backwards, or forget to use both their index and middle fingers. Helping them to hold the scissors properly makes a big difference.

I like how the book breaks things up so that you have several pages of just cutting straight lines, followed by a mini-project, such as cutting and taping a train together. Because the reality is that children will grow bored with just cutting lines, despite the fact that they need practice.

Regarding the book binding, it's not too difficult to rip the pages out. If you can really bend the binding, then the pages pull out easily. If not, then just tear it straight up against the book edge and you'll get a relatively straight tear. Also, at this age (3 and 4), the children don't care too much that a little of the edge is not perfectly straight.

One criticism: I wish the book provided more guidance to the adult. Am I supposed to let the child continue with his or her crooked lines, assuming that with practice they will just get better? Or am I supposed to help them guide the paper as they cut? If they don't cut straight, should I make them fix their mistakes? I'm not a teacher so these are things I don't know and it would be nice if the book's preface included some guidance on how to use the book.