How to Teach Kids to Tie Shoelaces
Did you know there's a superbly easy way to tie your shoes? So easy, children can learn it in a snap!
This technique trumps other techniques such as "The Bunny Ears" technique for quickness. It's both quick to learn, and quick to apply - in fact the most time consuming part of the procedure once learned is the crossing of the laces at the beginning.
Read on to learn how to tie shoes the easy way, step by step. Here is a terrific point of view video from Efficient Life Skills with the procedure slowed down:
Now get a shoe and follow along as you read!
Here are the steps:
1. Begin by crossing the laces as usual.
2. Take the left lace with your left hand between your index and middle fingers: the lace should rest over your index finger and thumb, and under your middle finger and rest of hand. Pull up and position your index and finger and thumb away from you, like you're about to take hold of something.
3. Take the right lace with your right hand by gripping it with the your middle, ring and little fingers pressed against your palm. Wrap your thumb under the lace and bring your index back under it too, in the same "about to take hold of something" position as the right hand, except pointing towards you.
4. Now here's the magic! Bring the thumb and index fingers of both hands up over the centre of the shoe so they're facing each other. The index fingers are pointed at each other (but not touching). Now bring the index finger and thumb of the right hand over to the left and pinch the lace of the left (that is currently positioned between the left thumb and index finger). Pull it backwards (towards the right) so it's under and behind the lace of the right hand (that will probably fall down a bit from the top of the right index finger). Now pinch the right lace with the index and thumb of the left hand and pull it backwards too, so you have the loops being pulled away from each other...
5. ... pull it tight and - voila! - one tied pair of shoes!
It might seem like a lot of details but actually, as you repeat the steps, you'll find these really are 4-5 easy motions that can be done in under 5 seconds! If it's tricky following the written steps, try watching the video a few times and following that.
Have you taught your child to tie their shoes using this technique? We'd love to hear your experiences! Email jojo@jojofun.co.uk
This article is based on a terrific tutorial found at Efficient Life Skills.
