Our Favorite Book for Tying Laces

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There are so many days (especially when we are running late) thank I am thankful for the genius who combined Velcro with children's shoes (and I must admit, I have a pair myself).  However, I wonder how much this convenience delays teaching our children the basic skill of tying shoes? 

Ever since we practiced tying brown paper packages with strings, my daughter has expressed an interest in learning how to tie bows with shoelaces.  My sister-in-law recommended the book,

"Red Lace, Yellow Lace".

After sitting down with her dad one afternoon, she mastered the method using the shoelace attached to the book.

Along with the cute poem and illustrations, we found the two-tone lace (red and yellow) made it easy to distinguish between the laces/loops.  The shoelace was also extra long which helped, especially in the beginning, when she had less control.

Once she had mastered the book, I pulled out this Melissa and Doug Shoe Lacing Peg Puzzle for her to work on.  I like this puzzle for tying practice because each of the laces are different textures/thicknesses (we didn't lace each shoe up all of the way to allow for some extra slack). 

Melissa and Doug also has this cool Wood Lacing Sneaker that is fun to practice on.

The final test was trying it with her own pair.

Red Lace, Yellow Lace teaches the "two loop" method.  Is this the method you use or the "one loop, circle around"?

Do you have any tried and true tips (or songs/poems) for teaching children how to tie shoes?  As I mentioned earlier, I think the two things that helped my daughter most were the two toned lace (which you can easily make yourself by tying two different colored laces together) and keeping them extra long for practice.  

Here are a few other fun shoe tying resources we've found helpful...

This trick is amazing and quick to teach

Tips for teaching your child how to tie shoes from I Can Teach My Child