Parents,
There are many rites of passage in the life of an early childhood student. Skipping, swinging on a swing, zipping a coat, and riding a two wheel bicycle are some of them. One skill that makes children especially happy is when they learn to tie their own shoes without the help of an adult. If your child is not yet doing this, this might be a good time to start practicing. Even though many of our students wear velcro or slip-on shoes, learning to tie is still an important learned skill. When I teach this skill at school, I have students start with an adult shoe facing away from them. Adult shoes give children more shoestring length to work with so they are not pulling the end of the shoestring too far through as they pull down on the last "bunny ears." This is very frustrating for children when this happens.
I'm attaching a link to a repetitious song that shows children one way to tie shoes. I know that there are many ways to do it, but this is closest to the way I teach it at school. Parents have often thanked me for teaching their children to tie shoes and I tell them that I am probably not doing anything different than they are - I'm just not the parent. Their children are simply hearing the information from someone different. Perhaps this video will help your child. If your child is already tying, there is no need to change the method.
Kathy Wagner - Early Childhood PE
PS - I am trying out something called SafeYouTube.com that is supposed to eliminate ads from YouTube videos. I hope it works.
