Customer Reviews

Tie Your Shoes: Rocket Style/Bunny Ears

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This book is GREAT! My 5 year old daughters learned how to tie with the bunny ears method in about an hour. I worked with them and they just sat down and practiced. The laces being are two different colors so it really makes it easy to use. It is a board book so very durable and has detailed directions with pictures to explain how each way to tie works. I highly recommend this book.

The key error made in this book is that the starting knot is shown as if children were going to tie their laces with them extending upward (hanging up?) toward their ankles. This is not the way most people tie their shoes.

Worse, this orientation changes during the course of the directions. The meaning of the word "over" shifts from the time you've tied your starting knot to the time you've tied your bow. This can be confusing for children who are literal and precise, and for adults who are trying to teach kids to tie square knots instead of slip knots.

When you tie your starting knot this way, holding your laces up toward your chin, then the lace that is "over" in the book's vocabulary is actually the one further away from you. This "over" lace will become "under" when the knot is tied on a slanted shoe and the laces naturally extend downward toward the toe. Then, when the instructions come for tying the bunny ears knot, the book changes the word's meaning, and "over" becomes the one that is closest to you as the loops stick straight up in the air or are held in a "downhill" toward the toe position.

I know this is confusing, but try it, and you'll see that the word "over" changes meaning, depending on whether you're crossing your x down toward the toes or up toward the ankles.

On the plus side, the games are cute and the overall book is cute, and the whole thing will work, as long as you and your child copy the illustrations exactly and understand that the meaning of "over" for the starter knot depends on holding the laces upward toward the wearer's chin.

I agree that the instructions are a bit off however, my daughter and I sat down with the book and within a half an hour she was tying her own shoes! The different colored laces are a great help and I love the way they show two different ways to tie your shoes so the kids can pick the one that's easier for them.

Basically, I have an 8 year old who has yet to be able to tie his shoes. Although the graphics on this are a bit "young", the use of the double color laces is extremely helpful. He is happy to use it to practice and we've seen progress. Wish I could have gotten it for him when he was younger but Amazon didn't carry anything like this at that time.

We got our daughter this book for her 5th birthday. I confess I relied pretty heavily on velcro shoes for the past 5 years!

The diagram instructions are small and not particularly helpful; in fact they are comparable to the instructions you get for putting together a coffee table. It was nice to have both methods to demonstrate so that my daughter could choose the method that worked for her.

We used the book as a way for me to demonstrate on a large scale and with different colored laces so my daughter could get a really good look at each step. After practicing on the laces in this book, she was able to tie her own shoes within a week. I can't really credit the book TOO much -- my daughter was ready and eager to learn, and I think any book with different colored laces would aid good old fashioned demonstration, parental feedback and independent practice.

I bought this book for my son to encourage him to tie his shoes. Although, it didn't help in convincing him to start, it did help once he decided to learn. He was even able to practice tying in the car on trips.

Amazon--someone is dropping the ball. This book is offered from several sellers for over $144.00. For that price I hope it comes with several pairs of shoes!!

I'm sure that this book works well for some children, and it was cute to see two books in one, but neither of them interested my daughter. I found that when she did practice, there was enough difference in working on a book and a shoe that it really did not help her make much headway in learning to tie her shoes.

I think the instructions in this book are pretty poor quality. However, if you want your child to simply practice tying their shoes this is great. My daughter learned how to tie her shoes in just one day using this book for practice. So to me it is worth the money right there.

My five year old excelled in every area in school except for the fact that he could not tie his shoes. After the book came, he was tying them that same day. I love this book. Even my 12 year old who only used the bunny ears method, now ties her shoes correctly.