14th January Shoe Buying Day

The PBS Calendar lists activities for parents to share with their children each day and today they are buying shoes. In Australia it is an activity that is on many parent-to-do lists as the new school year starts in two weeks. Remember that scene when Alexander is made to buy 'plain old white ones' when shopping for sneakers with his mother and brothers in Alexander's Terrible Horrible No-Good Very Bad Day.

I went searching for a Shoe Day as after all there does seem to be a day for everything else even 'socks', but besides Two Different Coloured Shoes Day on 3rd May and Sneakers Day on 9th October there wasn't a specific Shoe Day. So I'm instigating one, by saying there is a multitude of books, rhymes and songs which to explore when celebrating 'shoes'. And I have decided to start the term with my preschool classes doing that. I will have four or five lessons with each group so I think we will probably look at some aspect of shoes for each session. Usually we have a book, a rhyme or song and some activity.

They will all have new shoes and we will have plenty to look at, compare and discuss. We will see who has shoelaces, who has buckles and who has velcro. We will start with the book Whose Shoes? and find out how many different shoes there are and how many words we have for types of shoes. This video and song will help add to the list of shoes too.

We will have fun with Pete the Cat. He has two books which feature shoes... Pete the Cat: Rocking in my School Shoes and Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes . The children love to sing along with these which we can do courtesy of YouTube.

In each lesson with preschoolers I also like to introduce or revisit a nursery rhyme as they enjoy reciting them and don't know them like they used to. There are four that I can think of that feature shoes.
• 1 2 Buckle My Shoe
• There Was an Old Lady
• Cobbler Cobbler
• Diddle Diddle Dumpling My Son John

There are also a large number of songs complete with actions here.

While 'rhyme' is centre-most with preschoolers it will be fun to share books that are written in rhyme like
• What Can You Do With a Shoe?  by Beatrice Schenk de Regniers and Maurice Sendak. What a great question to discuss before even reading the book. Then look at the rhyme...
What can you do with a shoe? You can put it on your ear or wear it on your head or butter it like bread or use apple jam instead!
• Grandpa's Slippers by Joy Watson. This is part of a series of books about Grandpa and his clothing. They are written in rhyme and children and grandparents both laugh when these are read aloud.
• Shoes From Grandpa by Mem Fox and Patricia Mullins. This is a cumulative rhyme where family members describe the clothes they plan to give Jessie to go with the shoes from Grandpa.

Next dogs and shoes. Discuss what dogs do with shoes and then introduce these three books:
• One Two That's My Shoe! by Alison Murray
• Shoe Dog by Megan McDonald and Katherine Tillotson
• A Dog Wearing Shoes  by Sangmi Ko.
Each of these is humorous and likely to enthuse the children to talk.

And of course there's always fairytales. Here are five which feature shoes:
• Cinderella
• The Elves and the Shoemaker
• Puss in Boots
• The Twelve Dancing Princesses , and
• Red Shoes  by Hans Christian Andersen.

See the shoe possibilities really are endless!