Get kids thinking about design with this Design a Shoe printable STEAM activity for kids. This post also includes more fun activities for classic tales to keep kids thinking and learning.

The Elves and the Shoemaker Activity: Design Shoes
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I put together a simple shoe design printable for the kids. and handed it to my girls. Five-year-old Anna painted red high heels. Eight-year-old Lily designed snow boots with a built in step counter. And I LOVE the “awesome stuff” pocket twelve-year-old Emma dded to her “dressy but casual” boots.
This is the perfect STEAM education companion activity for the classic tale, The Elves and the Shoemaker.

More The Elves and the Shoemaker Learning Activities
Writing this post, I realized that we’ve done a surprising amount of shoe themed learning over the years! Here are the highlights:
- Tinkerbell shoes fashioned by then-six-year-old Emma out of plants from our yard.
- Silly chicken shoes made out of construction paper and tape.
- Deconstruction of a shoe whose mate went missing. I need to remember to do this again with our next thoroughly worn out shoe.
- Simple DIY felt baby shoes that my third child Lily wore as a baby.
- DIY princess shoes – one of my earliest blog posts.
All of this to show that I highly recommend challenging kids to turn their designs into reality!

More Classic Tales Activities for Kids
It’s Classic Tales week for the Virtual Book Club for Kids! Check out these fun classic tale activities for kids:
- A fun house engineering STEM challenge to go along with The Three Little Pigs.
- Build a Three Little Pigs Shape House.
- Fashion Bears to go along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
- A bear walk board game for Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
- A bridge building STEM challenge to try after reading the Three Billy Goats Gruff.
- Printable books for Aesop’s Fables.
What are your favorite classic tales for kids? Do you have fun activities to go with them? I would love to see any shoes your kids design using this printable! Share your photos on my Facebook page, or tag me on Instagram.
MaryAnne is a craft loving educator, musician, photographer, and writer who lives in Silicon Valley with her husband Mike and their four children.
Deconstruction of a shoe is a brilliant idea!
I like this activity, I’m totally on board with designing awesome shoes.
Shoes look hard to design as drawings! I love the printable!
So fun! I would love a pocket on my boots :D