I am currently working with Emily at tying her shoes. While the book “Red Lace, Yellow Lace” is great for having the laces and shoe cut out for her to practice on, I wasn’t crazy about the poem in the book. I searched for a poem I remembered from my childhood, “Bunny going around the tree” (or something like that), but found nothing, except for others asking if anyone knew the poem. However, I did find these two great poems to help a kid out! If you don’t want to buy the book, you can buy two different colored shoelaces and cut them half and retie the two different colors together. This makes it easier because you can say “Red Lace” or “Yellow Lace” instead of “this string” or “that string”.
PS: If anyone does know the poem about the “Bunny Boy”, please leave a comment!!
Teepee Tying
Build a tee pee
Come inside
Close it tight so we can hide
Over the mountain
And around we go
Here’s my arrow
And here’s my bow!
Criss Cross Tying Shoes
(tune: Splish Splash I was taking a Bath)
Criss Cross and go under the bridge
Then you got to pull it tight.
Make a loop but keep a long tail
That is how to do it right
Then you take the other string
and you wrap it ’round the loop
Pull it through the hole
Now you got the scoop
Bunny Ears – I heard this one on “Raising Helen.” The story goes like this: “Make two bunny ears. The bunny runs around the tree. The bunny jumps in a hole. Close it up tight!” I still think there is another one similar to this one about a bunny, but I’m not sure…
Tying shoes…makes me laugh. I pride myself in teaching my kids, leading and shepherding them. Our two youngest kids are not of shoe tying age yet, but of the three oldest, I completely failed at teaching them. I don’t even know how they figured it out, I think it was my wife. For some reason, I was just woefully incompetent. How do you tie a shoe? I don’t know…you just tie it! I remember taking an IQ test as a kid (my Dad was a psychologist at the time) and one question was “What is glass made of?” And I thought…”what a stupid question! Glass is made out of…glass? I don’t know? Who came up with this?!” Alright, my fourth kiddo is 2 years old. Maybe I’ll try the bunny story. Or maybe I’ll see if I can keep him in velcro shoes till he’s 18…