Lacing Shoes Learning Board
Product description: This Montessori item is a wooden frame with 3 images of brightly coloured sneakers with toggles and shoe laces in 3 different colours.
Material: Wood
Size: 29.5 cm x 22 cm x 1 cm
Age: +3 years old
Education and fun go hand in hand: An important aim of the Montessori philosophy is that children have the freedom they need for their own self development. This means that they develop the ability and skill to perform tasks of practical life themselves, depending on their particular readiness and stage of development. Practical life skills include a range of activities designed to develop the child’s independence and self-reliance.
This task is a practical life skill designed to teach the child how to tie his own shoe laces and to develop hand-eye coordination. It helps the child gain a step towards his own independence and gives him a sense of self sufficiency. This task encourages sensory and visual refinement by teaching the child to feed the laces through the toggles. It also helps refine & advance the child’s muscular development. They learn perseverance in mastering something, as it is an activity that they have to repeat over and over before they master it. There is a wonderful sense of achievement when they successfully complete this task. It engages both tactile & visual sensory input.
By using their hands and handling real objects, instead of looking at pictures, the child is engaged & this is much more beneficial for all-around learning. Children have a natural desire to create order & make sense of their world, a place which seems largely out of their control. This task gives them a sense of purpose & a feeling of capability by being in control of where the laces go. The shoe lacing task teaches logical thinking.
It also teaches the child self-correction as they are able to see for themselves when the laces don’t go into the right toggles or the lacing pattern is incorrect. This helps the child to develop decision making skills as they are the ones who get to decide where to thread the laces allowing a sense of self-confidence & achievement. Children can begin with this task from as early as 3-4 years of age, but are not yet developmentally able to tie their own shoes at that age, and so would at first observe, then thread the laces and then progress to tying.
Children are attracted by the bright colours & challenge of this task. It is a fun-learning skill using visual & tactile senses but in a way that’s more of a game than work.
Why buy this item: The lacing shoes learning board teaches them how to do something for themselves that they normally have to rely on a parent to do for them. Children will go back to this task again & again to re-feel the sense of achievement & satisfaction they get from completing the task successfully.