Free Tracing & Cutting Worksheets


Published: February 14, 2023 · Updated: March 4, 2025 by Sacha — This post may contain affiliate links. Read our full disclosure.

Need a simple fine motor activity for your child? These free tracing and cutting worksheets are the perfect way for both younger and older children to practice a variety of different skills. Print them out for your toddler, preschooler or kindergartener and use them to practice their tracing or scissor skills at home!

Does your child need some extra fine motor practice? These free worksheets can be used for both tracing practice or scissor practice, which makes them perfect for toddlers through kindergarten.

Whether you are a teacher, a homeschooling parent, or a caregiver whose child just needs a bit more practice, make sure you grab this free resource below so you can have it on hand when you need it!

Why You’ll Love This Printable

  • Designed by a parent: I created these worksheets for one of my daughters when she was in kindergarten and struggling to cut certain shapes with scissors. I hope they help your children get some extra practice as well!
  • Multi-purpose: Depending on your child’s age and level of development, this printable can be used for either tracing or scissor practice. This makes it perfect for multiple age groups!
  • Easy to download: No need to enter your email address or track down a resource library password—simply click on the download links below the preview images to download the files to your computer.

Looking for more free fine motor printables for kids? Check out these Q-Tip Painting Templates or these Uppercase & Lowercase Letter Tracing Worksheets!

Mockup of 2 cutting sheets (one with lines and one with shapes).

Download Your Free Tracing & Cutting Practice Worksheets

Click the text link below each image to be redirected to the corresponding PDF file. (The preview images are not print resolution.)

Please note that these worksheets are for school and personal use only and cannot be redistributed. When sharing this free printable, please link to this article rather than directly to the files. You can read our full printables terms of use here.

Want more printable fine motor activities?

Looking for more printables to help your little ones practice their fine motor skills? Head over to our shop and choose between hundreds of pages of fine motor activities, including tracing sheets, Q-tips sheets, dot markers sheets and more!

How to Use (for Tracing or Cutting)

This printable can be used in two different ways: to practice tracing (for younger kids who aren’t quite old enough for scissors), or to help your child learn to use scissors.

  • For tracing practice: If you are doing this activity with a child who isn’t old enough to use scissors, print out the page and have them follow the lines with their fingers (for younger toddlers) or trace over them with a pencil or marker (for older toddlers who can are able to writing implements).
  • For scissor practice: Print out the sheets and have your child cut along the dotted lines using plastic safety scissors or blunt tip metal scissors—whichever is more appropriate for your child’s level of development.

This set includes two pages with different designs to cut or trace, and can each one can be used to facilitate different skills.

  • Line worksheet: This page features different types of lines, including straight lines, wavy lines and zig-zag lines. This is perfect for kids who need to practice cutting or tracing basic lines before they can move on to shapes, and can also be used by toddlers who are learning to cut with safety scissors. (If you are a teacher, feel free to cut in between the lines to create cutting practice strips for your students.)
  • Shape worksheet: This page features 8 different shapes of varying complexity that your preschooler can use to refine their cutting or tracing skills and make them more precise. The shapes with more curves and angles tend to be more challenging, so you may want to start your kids off with a square or triangle if they’ve just graduated from lines.

Printing Instructions

After you download each PDF file to your computer, print each scissor skills worksheet on a separate sheet US Letter-sized paper (8.5 x 11 inches). You may need to print the pages several times as your child practices cutting all of the lines and shapes.

You should also be able to print out the pages on A4 paper—simply use the “Scale to Fit” setting on your printer to ensure that all of the printable area fits within the page that is being printed.

How to Make These Worksheets Reusable

If you are planning on using these worksheets for tracing practice, you can make them reusable by laminating each page using thermal laminator or self-laminating sheets, or by placing them inside plastic page protectors or dry erase pockets.

This will allow your child to trace over the lines and shapes using a dry erase marker, then wipe the sheets clean and store them for future use.

Mockup of 2 cutting sheets (one with lines and one with shapes).

Upgrade to the Full Set

Does your child still need more help? If ever you use this free printable to help your child and they still need more shape tracing and cutting practice, you may want to check out this 41-page bundle from our shop!

Mockup of big bundle of tracing and cutting worksheets.

Unlike the freebie in this article, the bundle features shapes in a variety of different sizes. This means that your child can start out cutting larger shapes, then slowly increase their precision skills by cutting smaller shapes as their abilities and comfort level grow.

Our 5-year-old was having trouble with some of the shapes (particularly circles and stars) and she found it so much easier to have access to practice sheets with different-sized shapes. Starting off with larger shapes and slowly reducing their size made her feel a lot more confident in her abilities.

The full bundle is available in our shop, and if you enter the coupon code CUTANDTRACE at checkout, you’ll get 15% off the regular price!

More Ways to Practice Scissors Skills

These simple practice pages are one way to help your child learn to cut with scissors, but if you’re looking a more hands-on approach, there are lots of different activities you can try to help them learn this important skill:

Mockup of line cutting worksheet.
Mockup of shape cutting worksheet.

Frequently Asked Questions

Because this printable can be used for both tracing and cutting practice, it is suitable for toddlers all the way through kindergarten and early elementary school—simply use the printable in the way that is best suited to their level of development.

Absolutely! I am always happy to help out fellow educators. Feel free to print out these worksheets and use them in your classroom, or to send your students home with a printed copy that they can use for homework.

Whether you use them for tracing or for cutting, these worksheets are a great way to practice a variety of important skills!

Cutting with scissors is an essential skill that will also help develop your child’s hand muscles, bilateral coordination and hand-eye coordination.

As for tracing, it will help your child practice their fine motor skills, pre-writing skills, coordination, drawing accuracy, control over writing instruments, handwriting and letter formation, hand-eye coordination, letter recognition and vocabulary.

Have a question that wasn’t answered here? Let me know in the comments and I’ll be happy to help!

More Free Printable Tracing Worksheets

If you have tried these Free Tracing & Cutting Worksheets or any other activity on my website, please let me know how it went in the comments below. I can’t wait to hear from you!

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