One of our favorite books this week is What Eddie Can Do by Wilfried Gebhard. Eddie has a wonderful imagination that takes him deep sea diving, outer space exploring, and mountain climbing among other things. But when he has to tie up a double-tailed monster to save his friend Clara, he realizes that his mom was right when she said it was time for him to learn how to tie shoes. Luckily, he is a quick learner and he returns to save his friend with his new knot tying skills. Phew!
A while back, I saw this shoe tying craft on Almost Unschoolers. I traced a pair of R's sneakers onto the back of a cereal box, cut them out, and let R color them. Then I used a hole punch to make four sets of holes on each "shoe".
I showed R how to lace the shoes.
Then we worked on tying the shoes. We use a different method than the one Eddie used in the book. From experience, I have found that it is easier for kids to learn using the two bunny ears, so that is what we did. The book is there to keep the shoe down on the table because R was having trouble keeping it in place; a rock would have been better but the book was right there and we were in deep concentration!
I cannot say that R has mastered shoe tying yet, but she definitely knows what to do. Unfortunately, her little fingers do not always cooperate the way she wants them to. No worries, she is only four.
I am linking this post to What My Child is Reading at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns.
10 comments:
Tying shoes is difficult to learn. Abby wants to, but just can't get her fingers in the right place either. Luckily, I like the Mary Jane style shoes and those just have velcro straps :)
What a great way to practice! I love it!
What a great idea! She looks very determined too.
My youngest managed to tie the laces on the pretend shoe, but is still struggling with her real shoes - she's only four, though too :) But, I'm so happy her five year old sister, triumphed - one more milestone down.
We keep renewing the book (I love the illustrations), so I think we might have to buy it, one these days.
This is the perfect activity for the book. I am putting it on my library list. DYK that daughter has no shoes with shoelaces - all velcro :)
What a great way to teach how to tie shoes! thanks!
Clever use of cereal box shoes! I might have to make some for JC to work on. We have velcro shoes with pretend laces but one day, she will need to tie her shoelaces. So far, she discovered tying knots on her own but I don't think they come out very easily. :)
I need to find that book for my 4-year-old!
Hmmmm....... I need to follow through on that, tieing shoes, my boys are ready to learn, which means the girl will get to try and learn as well.
I've never seen that book. I love the monsters as motivators for the kid in the book. lol. Good luck with shoe tying. As a former first grade teacher, her teachers will thank you someday... unless u homeschool in which case, I guess you'll thank yourself ;)
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