This is a great project to use when you are first introducing a child to scissors.  It requires single "snips" only.

You can make this appropriate for older children (kindergarten and up) by asking them to fill their templates with a particular type of shape (squares, rectangles, triangles, polygons, etc).

This scissor-skills chameleon craft is a great accompaniment to the children’s book The Mixed-Up Chameleon by Eric Carle.
 

Materials:

• children's scissors,
• construction paper -- 2 or 3 different colours -- you can prechoose the color or let the kids pick their own
• glue,
• paper and printer

Instructions:

• ADULT:  print template of choice or make your own.
• ADULT:  Cut the construction paper into long, one inch wide strips (you can cut fast, they don't have to be perfect)

ex: 
 

• show the child how to hold their scissors.
• let the child snip off pieces from the strips of construction paper...  As the children get older, you can ask them to try to snip perfect squares, but to begin with, just let them snip away

• Either squeeze the glue onto the template for the child or squeeze some into a margarine container lid and give the child a q-tip or popsicle stick to spread the glue themselves.
• Let the child fill the template with the snipped pieces -- don't worry that they go over the lines.
• Let dry.
• ADULT:  cut out the shape along the dark line (you should be able to turn the page over and see the dark black line through the back of the paper).
• Use a black marker to add back in the black "swirl" for the tail.
• Cut out the eyes from the template piece and add them to the chameleon's head.
• Glue onto a background -- chameleons change colours to match their surroundings, so use a background color that's the same as one of the construction paper colours you picked.
• Optional:  Mom or dad can cut simple leaf shapes for the kids.  Put 4 or 5 leaves together to make a flower or arrange the leaves on a construction paper trunk.
• Optional:  Older children can rip similar colored pages from a magazine, tear them into small pieces and use those recycled bits to collage the chameleon.

Template:

• Close the template window after printing to return to this screen.
• Set page margins to zero if you have trouble fitting the template on one page (FILE, PAGE SETUP or FILE, PRINTER SETUP in most browsers).

Chameleon Template

Print friendly version of these instructions