How Can I Tie it Up? A Lesson in Shoe Tying

Today on #ScribblePicnic Michael gave us this prompt: Tie it up. Since this is the first week back to school my thoughts went to all the tying up of shoes I did as a grade one teacher. And how thrilled I was when those kids could tie them up on their own.

My grandson is going into senior kindergarten and his goal this year is to in his own words, “tie up my shoes really fast”.

Therefore my picture today – done very quickly in pencil, then watercolour crayon, is a child learning to tie his shoe.

 

As I drew this I realized how complicated the motion of tying up shoes can be. I couldn’t tell where those laces were. And look at how the hands have to twist and turn to make the loops.

When I taught school, velcro had just come into existence. Great I thought – this will make things much easier. Wrong. The kids were so thrilled with the velcro I had trouble keeping them from doing up and undoing their shoes in circle time. Zip. Zip. went the velcro. Enough to drive me crazy.

Tying laces in an art. All ice skaters want to be able to do this task. Although I saw skates the other day that had no laces.

I have seen children make two loops to do their shoes but I tie the old-fashioned way. What about you? BUT….

I learned something today. I have been tying my shoes the wrong way. Here is a TedTalk that shows me how I should be tying them. This makes them stronger and they won’t come apart. I always had ended up double knotting mine. I will try this today.

Here is a cute video about kindergarteners tying their shoes.

I hope you enjoyed today’s post. I am always thrilled how there is something I can draw with the prompt.