Shoe Tying

I don't know about you, but my little guy is a very "out-of-the-box" thinker. Although he is very smart, he is not the kind of kid who learns in a traditional manner. We seriously have been working on tying his shoes for a good two years. We bought the little fake shoe at the store, we've practiced and practiced and practiced, we've tried teaching him about knots...and, nothing! None of the normal ways taught him how to tie his shoes. So all last year we had a first grader who couldn't tie his own shoes. By the first grade teachers stop helping kids tie their shoes so he had the option to ask friends for their help, or simply stuff his shoelaces inside his shoes. It was embarrassing for him. He felt discouraged and frustrated that he couldn't get this down, but it just seemed too abstract for him.

We decided that second grade wasn't going to be like that. We were determined to get him tying his shoes before the start of the school year so we dedicated tons of time for summer tying practice. What I didn't realize was that we needed to just get back to the basics. We know that J is an out of the box thinker so why were we trying to go the traditional route with this?!

A little research later and we came up with a game plan! We made sure he understood how to make basic "cross" knots on his shoe. We taught him a little song to remember the steps, and then let him watch us tie his shoes a couple of times. After that, we helped him through it one time on one shoe and he felt SO confident that he tried all by himself on the other shoe.... AND DID IT! YAY! After years of struggle, this took about 5 minutes to master! We will still continue trying the traditional way, but this works for now!

Here's how it goes; Cross, Cross, make a hole, put them (shoelaces) through, and Pull!