Friday, September 14, 2012

Make a Cheap "Learn to Tie Your Own Friggin Shoes, Kid!" Tool

I have this insane mentality that my kids will be "better off" if I make them have tie shoes and not velcro shoes.  Weird, I know.  Just one of my "weird things".  

Well one problem with my need for tie shoes is that I needed to make my kids learn how to tie their own shoes for it to be successful.  So I did this at the end of summer when I realized that they were struggling.


I grabbed a cardboard box.  Had to keep it real and pick a Budweiser box.


I grabbed my bin of ribbon.


I cut out a part of the box and made the kid stand on it.  I traced the outline of his shoe (the more involved the kid is, the more likely he might actually want to tie the friggin thing, you know?)



Then I got my foot.  I cut it out.  You can make the kid do this too if you are so motivated.


Then I took a knife and I cut some holes as "shoe lace holders" - you know - like a shoe.


I let the kid pick out two different colored pieces of ribbon.  This way, he could tell what string was what when he was practicing.  I made him practice it a lot and a lot.  


Eventually he was ready to tie his own shoes and here is a picture of him in his shoes when he first tied them all by himself.  

It didn't take long - he just needed to understand the basics of it which I think the different colored strings helped him to do.  It was cheap.  It was easy.  It was educational.  I need an award or some crap like that.  

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