Teach your child to tie their shoes!

Tying shoelaces is a rite of passage, a skill taught early, and many of us, when we were little, might have found it challenging. Now it is your turn to teach your child to do their laces. Seeing your child going through the same mistakes could be endearing and relatable. While some believe that children will learn to knot their own laces, others persistently try to teach and train their kids. Either way, it is a good idea to give your child a headstart or a way for them to practice shoe lacing and knot tying. It also works as a fun weekend craft idea.

One added advantage of this DIY is that your child learns a fairly complex task of lacing and knotting early on. This helps strengthen their fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and the ability to build epic blanket forts when they are old enough.    

Using crafts to teach shoelace tying

You will need: 

• 2 sheets of colored chart or cardstock
• Pencils
• A Gluestick
• A pair of shoelaces
• Scissors

Steps

• Place your child’s shoes on a colored chart
• Trace the outlines of both shoes and cut out the templates 
• Draw the eye stay, tongue, collar, and toe cap on the blank template, so it looks like the upper of a shoe 
•  Punch holes along the eye stay to form the eyelets (use the same number of holes as your kids’ shoe) 
• Insert a shoelace on the top hole and lace it through
• Make sure you end up with the two ends of the lace at equal lengths 
• Demonstrate how a shoelace is tied to your child
• Have them repeat it on the other shoe

There, you have your perfect shoe, lace-tying practice models.  

Your child can personalize these paper shoes by painting or drawing on them.

Note: You can make the shoe-tying paper templates on your own, hand them to your child and encourage them to practice. The good thing about these paper shoes is they can be used anywhere. On the table, huddled up in bed, in the car, wherever they please. Who knows? They might even discover their own special knot to keep their shoes secure!  

Explore byjuslearning.com today to find out how your child can learn by seeing, playing, and doing through our interactive app and hands-on activities on Magic Workbooks that encourage children to learn at their own pace alongside beloved Disney and Pixar characters and become lifelong learners.