It’s a common scene: a toddler, just learning to walk, lifts up onto the balls of their feet while moving from the coffee table to the couch. This tiptoe style, known as toe walking, is a normal stage in early growth. For many kids, it’s a short-term habit they grow out of as their balance and coordination get better. But for some, it sticks around and might point to deeper issues with senses or movement skills.

As a parent, you may wonder if your child’s toe walking is just a passing phase or something bigger. This guide will help you learn about how toe walking connects to foot strength and a child’s overall growth. We’ll look at the usual reasons kids walk on their toes, how it ties into sensory processing and motor skills, and share fun, easy activities you can try at home to help build a healthy heel-to-toe walk. We’ll also talk about when it’s a good idea to get advice from a physical therapist.

Understanding Toe Walking in Children

Toe walking, or walking on the balls of the feet without the heels making contact with the ground, is common in children under the age of two. As they gain confidence and stability, most kids naturally transition to a heel-toe pattern by age three. When it continues beyond this point, it is often referred to as idiopathic toe walking, meaning it has no known medical cause.

While often benign, persistent toe walking can lead to challenges down the road. It can cause tightness in the calf muscles and Achilles tendons, affect balance, and lead to an awkward running pattern. Understanding the potential drivers behind this habit is the first step toward providing the right support.

Common Causes and Contributing Factors

Why do some children continue to toe walk when others don’t? The reasons are varied and can involve a mix of physical, sensory, and developmental factors.

• Habit (Idiopathic Toe Walking): For many children, toe walking is simply a habit they developed early on and never outgrew. There’s no underlying medical issue, and they can stand flat-footed when asked.
• Sensory Processing Differences: This is a significant factor, particularly for many neurodiverse children. Some kids have a heightened sensitivity to touch (tactile defensiveness) and dislike the feeling of different textures on their feet, like cold tile or shaggy carpet. Others may be under-responsive (hyposensitive) and toe walk to get more intense sensory feedback through their joints and muscles, a sensation known as proprioceptive input.
• Vestibular System Challenges: The vestibular system, located in the inner ear, governs our sense of balance and spatial awareness. If this system is underdeveloped, a child might toe walk to feel more stable or to alter their center of gravity, making them feel more secure as they move.
• Muscle Tightness or Weakness: A tight Achilles tendon or calf muscles can physically prevent a child’s heel from touching the ground comfortably. Conversely, a weak core or weak muscles in the feet and ankles can make maintaining a flat-footed stance more difficult, leading them to compensate by rising onto their toes.
• Underlying Medical Conditions: In a smaller number of cases, persistent toe walking can be associated with conditions like cerebral palsy, muscular dystrophy, or other neurological issues. This is why it’s essential to consult a healthcare professional if you have concerns.

It’s important to remember that these factors often overlap. A child might start toe walking due to sensory sensitivities and then develop muscle tightness as a result, reinforcing the pattern.

The Link Between Feet, Balance, and Development

Our feet are the foundation of our movement. They are complex structures packed with bones, joints, and nerve endings that constantly send information to the brain about our body’s position in space. When children walk with a proper heel-toe gait, they engage the full structure of the foot.

This action strengthens the intrinsic muscles within the feet, builds stability in the ankles, and provides rich sensory information that supports balance and coordination. Toe walking disrupts this process. It limits the range of motion in the ankle and keeps the muscles in the back of the leg in a constantly shortened state while underusing the muscles in the front. This imbalance can make activities like squatting, jumping, and running more challenging.

By focusing on activities that strengthen the feet and improve balance, you are not just addressing toe walking. You are building a stronger foundation for all future gross motor skills.

Fun At-Home Activities to Strengthen Feet and Balance

The best way to encourage a change in a walking pattern is not to constantly correct your child, which can create frustration. Instead, turn therapy into playtime. These fun, engaging activities help strengthen key muscle groups, improve sensory processing, and promote a flat-footed stance without your child even realizing it.

Here are 5-7 activities you can easily set up at home.

1. Animal Walks

Animal walks are a fantastic way to stretch tight calf muscles and strengthen feet and legs. They are playful and easily adaptable.

• Bear Walk: Have your child walk on all fours with straight arms and legs, keeping their feet flat on the floor. This provides a great calf stretch.
• Crab Walk: Sitting on the floor, your child places their hands and feet flat and lifts their hips. Walking forward and backward in this position strengthens the core, arms, and leg muscles.
• Penguin Walk: Ask your child to walk on their heels with their toes lifted toward the sky. This strengthens the muscles on the front of the shin (tibialis anterior), which are often underused in toe walkers.
• Frog Jumps: Start in a deep squat with heels on the ground (as much as possible) and jump forward, landing back in the squat. This stretches the Achilles tendon and builds explosive power.

2. The Homemade Balance Beam

You don’t need professional equipment to work on balance. Create a “balance beam” with items you already have.

• Get Creative: Use a line of painter’s tape on the floor, a rolled-up yoga mat, a row of pillows, or even a plank of wood laid flat in the backyard.
• The Challenge: Encourage your child to walk along the beam without stepping off. To make it harder, have them walk backward, sideways, or carry a small object like a beanbag. This challenges their vestibular system and requires them to use their entire foot to maintain balance.

3. Picking Up Marbles (or Pom-Poms) with Toes

This activity is excellent for developing the small intrinsic muscles within the foot that are crucial for creating a stable arch.

• Set-Up: Place a handful of marbles, small stones, or colorful pom-poms on the floor next to a small bowl.
• The Game: Have your child sit on a chair and use only their toes to pick up the objects and place them in the bowl. You can make it a race or see who can pick up the most in one minute.

4. Walking on Different Surfaces

If sensory sensitivities are a factor, gradually exposing your child to various textures can help desensitize their feet and make them more comfortable with different sensations.

• Create a Sensory Path: Set up “stations” with different textures. You could use bubble wrap, a fluffy blanket, sandpaper (use a fine grit and ensure it’s secured to a board), grass, sand, or a pan of dry beans or rice.
• Explore and Play: Let your child walk, crawl, or stomp through the different stations. Talk about how each one feels—bumpy, soft, scratchy, or smooth. Turn it into a game of “the floor is lava” where they can only step on the sensory pads.

5. Squatting to Play

Lowering the level of play encourages squatting, a powerful movement that naturally stretches calf muscles and promotes a flat-footed stance.

• Adjust the Environment: Set up activities like puzzles, coloring, or building blocks on the floor or a very low table (like a coffee table).
• Encourage the Squat: When your child goes to play, they will naturally need to squat down to participate. This position provides a sustained stretch to the Achilles tendons and requires them to keep their heels down for balance.

6. Uphill and Downhill Adventures

Walking on inclines is a simple yet highly effective way to work on foot and ankle mechanics.

• Indoor Ramps: If you have a wedge cushion or can safely prop up a sturdy board, create a small ramp indoors for your child to walk up and down.
• Outdoor Hills: Find a gentle grassy hill at a local park. Walking up the hill naturally forces a heel-toe pattern and stretches the calves. Walking down the hill requires core control and strengthens the muscles in the front of the leg as they work to control the descent.

Tips for Neurodiverse Kids

Adapting activities for neurodiverse children, including those with autism or sensory processing disorder, can make them more effective and enjoyable.

• Follow Their Lead: Introduce activities slowly and never force participation. If a child is resistant to a texture or movement, try again another day or modify it.
• Use Visual Schedules: Show them a picture of the activity you plan to do. A visual schedule (e.g., “First Bear Walks, then puzzle”) can reduce anxiety and make transitions smoother.
• Incorporate Special Interests: If your child loves dinosaurs, call the activity “Dino Stomps” instead of frog jumps. If they love trains, the balance beam can be a railroad track.
• Keep it Brief and Positive: Short, frequent sessions are often more effective than one long session. Aim for 5-10 minutes of “playtime” a few times a day. Celebrate effort, not just perfection.

When to Seek Professional Help

While at-home activities can make a significant difference, there are times when professional guidance is necessary. A physical therapist (PT) can provide a comprehensive evaluation, identify the specific drivers of your child’s toe walking, and create a tailored treatment plan.

Consider scheduling an evaluation with a pediatric physical therapist if you notice any of the following:

• Persistence Beyond Age 3: If your child is still toe walking consistently after their third birthday.
• Inability to Stand Flat-Footed: Your child cannot physically get their heels to the ground, even when standing still or squatting.
• Stiffness and Pain: Your child complains of pain in their feet or legs, or you notice significant tightness in their calf muscles.
• Functional Difficulties: Toe walking is impacting their ability to keep up with peers, run, jump, or participate in age-appropriate activities.
• Asymmetry: The toe walking occurs on only one side.
• Regression: Your child previously walked flat-footed but has started toe walking again.

A physical therapist can offer targeted stretching and strengthening exercises, manual therapy to improve muscle length, recommendations for appropriate footwear, and other specialized interventions. They can also help rule out or identify any underlying medical conditions that may require further investigation.

A Foundation for the Future

Supporting your child’s development is a journey of observation, encouragement, and playful intervention. Toe walking, while common, offers a valuable window into your child’s developing motor and sensory systems. By transforming therapeutic exercises into fun, everyday activities, you can strengthen their feet, improve their balance, and build their confidence.

Remember to be patient and consistent. Changing a motor pattern takes time. Celebrate the small victories—the moment their heel touches down during a bear walk or the extra second they balance on the tape line. Every step, no matter how small, is progress on the path to strong, stable, and healthy movement.

If you think back to your days of fun on the playground during elementary school recess, what is one rule that really sticks out in your mind?  No climbing up the slide!  The rule certainly makes sense to avoid collisions between kiddos.  It’s important for children to learn patience and practice turn-taking too.  However, did you ever visit the playground after school or on a weekend when there were no teachers present to enforce the no slide climbing rule?  Do you remember the exhilaration you felt when finally reaching the top of the slide after multiple attempts, like you’d just conquered Mount Everest?  While it’s not quite the same, climbing up a slide is a challenging and fun activity that engages the whole body!  Here are some of the benefits: 

• Core Strengthening:  The abdominal muscles, back muscles and the muscles around the pelvis are put to work.  Core strength is the foundation to perform essentially all gross and fine motor movements.  
• Upper body strengthening: Biceps, triceps, deltoids, not to mention all of the muscles that stabilize the shoulders.  Also, what better way to work on grip strength? 
• Lower body strengthening: Quads, glutes, hamstrings, calves, intrinsic muscles of the feet – just to name a few of those lower body muscles getting a work out!   
• Proprioception:  Talk about heavy work!  Pulling one’s body up a slide provides lots of proprioceptive input (sense of body awareness) through the hands and feet. 
• Bilateral coordination and motor planning: Both sides of the brain need to communicate to coordinate the movements necessary to climb using a reciprocal pattern.  You need to stabilize yourself with one foot/hand while motor planning the next necessary movement.   
• Balance: When you’ve FINALLY reached to top of the slide, of course the next step is to slide down! Sliding helps develop the vestibular system, therefore your sense of balance. 

 Safety tips: 

• Create rules for slide climbing, such as: “We can only climb up the slide when mom or dad are with us and say it’s ok.” 
• An adult should always be present and close by. 
• For school age children, explain that they still need to follow the playground rules and listen to teachers during recess. 
• Toddlers should only use slides meant for their size.  An adult should be close enough to have the ability to keep hands on small children. 

Climbing to the top of the slide isn’t easy – it takes strength, endurance, and determination!  Be your kiddo’s cheerleader and provide lots of words of encouragement.  Physical benefits aside, the best part of this activity might just be the huge smile on their face when they reach the top!  

When a child is developing, there are many checklists going on in their parents’ heads about what milestones they are meeting. Are they rolling on time? Walking? Saying the right amount of sounds of words? Crawling is a very important milestone in a child’s development. While it is an important gross motor milestone, there are many aspects of crawling that help development in other areas.

There are of course many physical benefits to crawling. When crawling, children will develop strength in their entire body. Crawling requires large muscle groups to drive movements, resulting in strengthening in all these large muscle groups that will help them walk, run, and jump in the future. Their core and trunk strength will also develop, as crawling requires a strong core base to move the arms and legs and maintain their balance. They will develop their shoulder strength through weight-bearing on the hands. As their hands are moving across surfaces, their intrinsic hand muscles and arches will develop, which will aid them in various grasping tasks such as holding a pencil or opening a jar.

In addition to these strengths and hand development aspects of crawling, there is a visual component that develops when the child is crawling. As the child is moving throughout their environment, he or she is developing their ‘optic flow’ as the environment is moving past him when he is crawling past. This skill is particularly useful when walking or driving later in life. The child will also develop other visual skills such as spatial awareness, depth perception, and convergence. Your child will start to calibrate the meaning of these things – the more time it takes to crawl to an object, the farther away it is and vice versa. He or she will start to develop the ability to have his or her eyes work together when an object is getting closer, allowing them to appropriately track the object. These skills are important with safety and body awareness, throwing and catching a ball, and reaching for objects.

A child’s vestibular and proprioceptive system is also developing when a child is crawling. Your vestibular and proprioceptive system are 2 key players in balance, and the ability to understand where his or her body is in space. As the child’s head position changes and the child is activating the muscles around the joints, these systems are making new connections and the brain is learning how to interpret those signals. The ability for the child to recognize where their head, arms, or legs are positioned in space will allow them to develop the walking, running, and jumping skills, as well as translate to the ability to maintain a safe body while completing these tasks.

Finally, your child is learning how to use the right side and the left side of his or her brain together. Having the brain work in full communication with each other allows for complete coordination when completing activities and tasks.

Crawling gives your child increased independence. They have the ability to make their own decisions, move to a toy or object they want to further explore, and as a result experience the gratification of completing a goal and reaching that toy that they really wanted to play with! Their self-confidence increases, and with each success – and failure – they discover both their potential and limitations.

While some children skip this stage and develop these skills appropriately, there are others who may not have had the ability to develop these skills that come with crawling. These children will present with difficulty understanding where their body is in space (frequent falling, uncoordinated movements), participating in throwing or catching activities, grasping a marker, or visual difficulties. While the lack of crawling may not be the only answer as to why your child may be experiencing these difficulties, it can be an important piece in helping determine what activities, exercises, or therapeutic interventions your child may need to help them develop these skills.

We grew up with games and toys like Lincoln Logs, Hot Wheels, Barbie Dolls, and Chutes and Ladders. When we were children, we loved playing with these toys and were oblivious to the fact we were learning important skills while playing. As we know, children love screens. We didn’t have access to screens when we were children like children have today. Screens are everywhere and it is difficult to escape them. This blog highlights different toys to help limit your child’s screen time. With present day technology being at its best, the American Academy of Pediatrics urges play as a prescription, or antidote, to screen time. Their advice: limit screen time, make time for unstructured play, and choose toys that inspire imagination.  

We’ve built a guide of go-to, educational toys that children gravitate toward:

1. The Melissa and Doug Learn to Play Piano: 

Purpose and Benefits: Teaches fine motor coordination skills, sound discrimination, core stability, listening, concentration, self-regulation, and memory.

2. Magna-Tiles

Purpose and Benefits: Encourages creative thinking, color, shape, & symmetry discrimination, mathematics, social play, and fine motor skills.

3. Fisher-Price Laugh & Learn Smart Stages Piggy Bank

Purpose and Benefits: Grows and develops language in English and Spanish through numbers and songs. Features different levels to help progress learner in skills.  Uses action words and phrases such as ‘open’. Fine motor skills, color discrimination, counting, and animal recognition is also a plus!

4. Feed The Woozle

Purpose and Benefits: This Game utilizes fine & gross motor skills, body awareness, reading and word recognition, counting, turn taking, and multiple step directions.

Bonus! Cooperative game play!

5. The Learning Journey: Space Match

Purpose and Benefits: Social play, turn taking, shape & color discrimination, matching, and memory are all focuses of this game.

Bonus! The Learning Journey: My First Grab It comes in many different versions that all teach different learning aspects. Check out The Learning Journey for puzzles, numeracy, matching, and imaginative building.

The list of toys that grab attention and make learning fun is endless. Other toys to make the list:

• Kinetic Sand
• Play Doh with molds
• Train and Tracks sets
• Marble Run
• Hoot Owl Hoot
• Zingo
• Catch the Fox

These games and toys help children to continue to put building blocks of various skills upon their already existing foundation. Giving a child the opportunity to play is one of the best gifts that can be given. It is crucial that we share the joy of social interaction with children and connect with each other through play.

You may have heard of babies skipping their crawling milestone. You may also have heard that crawling is no longer on the developmental checklist. Perhaps you are wondering why crawling is such a big deal and why it can’t be skipped. This blog will help you understand the importance of crawling as a foundational skill for gross motor development and why we at Blue Bird include it in our curriculum, even though it is a skill that is typically seen at 8-to-11 months of age. 

 Crawling is another form of tummy time! 

Your pediatrician probably recommended that your child perform tummy time as an infant. Tummy time promotes the strength and development of the muscles behind the neck and along the spine. Similarly, crawling is a great way to strengthen those muscles, especially the muscles behind the neck. It helps your child practice maintaining head control while the rest of their body is moving. At Blue Bird Day, we use crawling to promote head control and strengthening of those spinal muscles. 

 Crawling promotes scapular strengthening and shoulder stabilization. 

What does this mean? Think about doing a pushup. When you put weight through your hands, the muscles in your shoulder, around your shoulder blade, and in your upper back have to work to prevent your upper body from collapsing to the ground. As infants, crawling is one of the first ways they are exposed to strengthening of the muscles in their shoulders and upper back. They miss out on a lot of opportunities for upper body strengthening when they do not crawl. How does this apply to our clients at Blue Bird? If our kiddos have weaker shoulders or upper bodies, crawling is a great way to promote the development of those muscles. 

Crawling encourages upper and lower extremity dissociation. 

In simple terms, it means that crawling helps separate the movements of arms and legs and increases the flexibility of the spine. When a baby crawls, arms and legs should move in opposite directions. For example, when the right arm moves forward, the right leg will simultaneously be moving back. As this happens, it will cause the spine to bend to the left, and vice versa for when the left arm is moving forward. This repetitive action that is associated with crawling helps increase the flexibility of the spine since it is constantly being moved side-to-side. Our clients at Blue Bird can benefit from crawling because they work on moving their arms and legs separately! 

 Crawling can help with walking! 

The movement patterns of crawling imitate that of walking. How so? Weight-bearing and elongation. Let’s return to the example in the previous paragraph. When a baby’s right hand is moving forward, its right leg is moving back and the left leg is in the air. That means that 1) the right side of the body is elongating, and 2) the baby’s weight is on the right leg. This pattern is also repeated on the opposite side of the body. Now let’s take a look at walking. It is very subtle, but when you put weight through your right leg, the right side of your body should elongate more than it should collapse. Thus, crawling is one of the first movements where a baby learns this elongation pattern and can be considered a foundational skill for walking. 

 As you can see, crawling has many benefits for different parts of the body and plays a role in the development of gross motor skills. Our goal as therapists at Blue Bird is not only to ensure that our clients’ higher–level targets are met, but also that they have strong foundational skills that will set them up for success. There are many foundational skills needed for the development of efficient gross motor milestones, and crawling is no exception. 

Movement songs are a quick and easy way to get your child moving inside when it’s cold outside! The use of videos can help the whole family learn the moves and pair the words with those movements. As you and your child begin to learn the songs, try turning the iPad around and dancing to the songs without the video! Check out this page for a list of great songs.

Areas of Development:

• Communication: Music targets communication in many ways and can be easier for your child to attend to. Model singing along with the songs, as well as singing them without the video, to help foster your child’s understanding of the words and the actions paired with those words.
• Fine Motor: Gross motor development works hand-in-hand with fine motor development. Skills such as imitating actions, crossing midline, clapping, and hand movements (think Baby Shark) can help promote foundational fine motor skills in a fun and engaging way!
• Gross Motor: Movement songs are a great way to target many skills vital to gross motor development, such as body awareness, motor imitation skills, and coordination skills. Movement songs are a fun way to provide structured movement breaks with the “demands” coming from the ever-appealing iPad, promoting engagement and participation.
• Social-Emotional: Music is a great way to promote joint attention with our kids. Engaging in the moments with your child can provide that model while also promoting the shared joy of silly movements.
• Cognition: You can help your child work on following commands and verbal directives through song! Some movement songs get faster as they go, requiring faster reaction time (Stand Up, Sit Down). They also add additional steps and movements, challenging your child’s verbal and movement processing.

Upgrade: Once your child has mastered movement songs, you can progress to yoga. Yoga for kids is a great way to work on breath control, postural stability, and overall strengthening, as it requires your child to hold various positions for longer periods of time through isometric movements. Use of yoga cards such as Yogarilla or The ABCs of Yoga for Kids can help you grow your moves! You can also use apps such as “Super Stretch,” which provides a video of children engaged in the poses. Once your child is more familiar with the poses, you can challenge them to complete the pose without even watching the video!

Downgrade: Have a dance party with your favorite song and encourage your child to freestyle! Jumping around and moving with you, even in an unstructured way, is a great way to build engagement and joint attention. Dancing and singing along to a song is a great way to work on stamina and endurance, promote regulation, and have a great time with your family!

Related Links:

• Super Stretch
• Yogarilla
• ABC Yoga for Kids

Engaging in tactile or “messy” play is essential for the development of fine motor skills and discrimination between textures, helping our kids understand the world around them. DIY Slime is a fun activity to keep your kids entertained with a fun, sticky toy at the end! You can also throw it in a ziplock bag (making sure to tape the edges shut to contain the mess) and you have a portable fidget! You can make it winter themed by dying the slime blue while making it, adding glitter, or adding snowflake sequins or beads.

Click here for a simple guide on how to make your own.

Areas of Development:  

• Communication: Follow your child’s lead, and work to expand their output of communication with modeling of action words or descriptive words. Modeling simple, one to two-word labels can help promote language development during play.  
• Fine Motor: To increase the fine motor challenge with slime, try pushing beads into the slime and pulling them back out. This is a great way to work on functional grasp patterns, arch development, discrimination between sides of the hand, and opening of the thumb web space.  
• Gross Motor: Positioning while engaged in play on the floor is a great way to incorporate strengthening into functional play. Encourage your child to sit up without leaning or have them lay on their belly propped on their elbows. Be sure to encourage your child to keep their head up to promote full-body strengthening! 
• Social-Emotional: Use of silly sounds while engaged in play (“squish!”) can help promote joint attention between you and your child. Holding the slime up near your face can promote eye contact and interaction while engaged in play. Parallel play, modeling, and following your child’s lead is a great way to address those foundational skills of social interaction.  
• Cognition: While making the slime, your child can practice following a recipe, gathering ingredients, and attending to a task. Challenge them further by asking them what step or ingredient comes next, allowing them to take the lead. This targets sequencing, working memory, and following directions, essential skills to promote problem-solving, and independence in novel tasks.  

If you want to upgrade the difficulty level of the activity:

Incorporate a breath control activity into the tactile play with slime. Use a straw to blow bubbles into the slime, creating an exciting visual effect. This promotes oral motor skills such as lip closure and breath control and makes it more difficult for your child to suck the material back through the straw into their mouth, as can happen with water and soap. If that’s still too easy, challenge your child to hum their favorite song while blowing the bubbles, providing high-intensity oral input. It also requires sustained breath control, a skill that contributes to self-regulation. 

These words are often spoken in regard to helping the environment, but did you know they can also relate to fun ways to improve your child’s gross motor skills? This post will highlight some creative ways you can use things around the house (that you likely were going to recycle anyway) to work on gross motor development.

1. Boxes 

• Crawling: Take large boxes, open on both ends, to create a fun tunnel to crawl through to help your child work on their strength and coordination. This is an excellent activity for young children still developing this skill and even for older children to refine this foundational movement.  
• Throwing: You can use a box to create a fun throwing game or you can use several small buckets stacked together, as in Bozo buckets. You can also take a large box and cut several holes in it to play a bean bag game. Socks filled with beans can be substituted for bean bags, if you don’t have those at home. You can make each hole in the box worth different points for an added challenge! 
• Balance: Line up several small boxes as part of an obstacle course. Have you child step in and out of the boxes as they move through the course. This allows them to work on their single leg balance, visual motor skills, and body awareness. You can even fill the boxes with sensory items, such as packing peanuts or rice, for an additional therapeutic effect.  

2. Bubble Wrap (larger bubble wrap works best for these) 

• Single Leg Stance: Practice single leg balance with your child as they pick up one leg at a time to stomp on bubble wrap. Add a several second countdown for an increased challenge.  
• Jumping: Practice jumping forward and up and down to pop bubble wrap. Encourage your child to jump with both feet moving together.  

3. Water bottles/Soda pop bottles 

• Bowling Game: Line up several empty bottles and practice throwing or rolling a small ball underhand to knock them down.  
• Bottle Knock Down: Line the bottles up on a table or elevated surface. Practice throwing a small object to knock them down. This game will target overhand throwing.  

4. Aluminum Cans 

• Can Knock Down: Build a pyramid of cans. You can place them on the ground to work on underhand throwing and on an elevated surface to improve overhand throwing.  
• Stilts: Take 2 aluminum cans and drill a small hole on either side of each can. Attach a rope or ribbon through that is long enough for your child to hold in their hand. Have your child stand on top of the upside down cans using the rope to help move their feet as they walk. This is a very challenging activity for balance, motor planning, and coordination. Be sure to practice in a safe environment and use safety equipment, such as a helmet and knee pads, for extra protection.  

5. Milk Jug 

• Thrower/Catcher: Take a plastic milk jug, cut away the bottom of the container just below the handle on one side. This will leave a fun toy you can use to scoop up a ball to throw back and forth. This is a great activity for visual motor coordination, arm coordination, and playing with a partner.  

6. Paper Plate 

• Ice Skating: Have your child place 2 paper plates under their feet and skate along the floor. This works best on a slick, smooth surface. 
• Frisbee: Staple two paper plates together to create a Frisbee. Your child can help color and decorate the Frisbee as a fun fine motor activity.  

For more games that help improve your child’s gross motor skills, talk to one of Blue Bird Day’s physical therapists!

Stephanie is a Pediatric Physical Therapist at Blue Bird Day. For many parents with a child involved in physical therapy, their previous experiences come from their time spent in Early Intervention (EI). Physical therapy in Early Intervention focuses primarily on developing a child’s gross motor milestones such as sitting, crawling, and walking. However, there are many more physical demands put on children as they grow and develop and it is Stephanie’s job to recognize the full potential of every child she treats. She describes how Blue Bird Day’s unique physical therapy program can do so much more for child development and what motivates her to excel in her role.

Stephanie leads the kindergarten PT rotation where she provides a safe and structured approach to work on gross motor skills. Physical therapy works on stairs, balance, strength, endurance, climbing, team sports and coordination. Aside from targeting gross motor skills, evidence shows that physical therapy focused on visual motor skills can also increase social functions in children when it comes time to interact with their peers.

This confidence boost makes the physical therapy rotation a perfect environment for children to participate in group activities. Additionally, improving a child’s strength, endurance, and posture can have an impact on their abilities to engage and participate in academic tasks within the classroom as well as during feeding routines. Additionally, Stephanie is one of the therapists that provides Extended Day services that go beyond the program to allow for more individualized attention.

The Path To Becoming a Pediatric Physical Therapist

Experiences at Eyas Landing and other outpatient pediatric clinics combined with her long-standing role as a camp counselor have given Stephanie a tremendous foundation in working with kids with special needs. In fact, it was her time working as a camp counselor and inclusion aide for children on the spectrum that led to her choosing pediatrics for her own career. She was already majoring in biology and knew she wanted to work in health care.

While contemplating which career path to pursue, Stephanie returned to the physical therapy practice to where her twin sister received treatment as child for an observation. Stephanie had fond memories of this PT team helping her sister and that’s when everything clicked for her. Pediatric physical therapy connected the population she wanted to work with and the medical background she was pursuing. Physical therapy incorporates the biological aspects of how bodies work, is hands on and requires creativity and flexibility, all areas that appealed to Stephanie. It was a perfect fit!

How Pediatric Physical Therapy is unique at Blue Bird Day

Stephanie thinks of physical therapy at Blue Bird Day as one integral piece of a much larger picture. For the team of therapists working with each child, it is imperative to understand how those pieces connect. What she is working on with a child correlates with therapists from other disciplines, but she is coming at it from different approach.

She gives a great example of how the disciplines differ using an obstacle course. The occupational therapist may be challenging the child to follow the directions of the obstacle course or assist in creating the steps. The speech therapist is asking the child to communicate about the different aspects of the course. The physical therapist is making sure the child has the strength and balance to get through the course. All of these perspectives are equally valid and work together to ensure a comprehensive treatment is being provided to the child.

She believes that this is what makes the program so effective as it produces faster progress and more trusting relationships with the children. The physical therapy team that she is a part of come from diverse career backgrounds, with experience treating both pediatric and geriatric populations. Together they learn from their collective experiences to best treat each child in an individualized and comprehensive manner.

There are three main theories of practice the PT team uses  during their sessions. Motor Control Theory focuses on how the nervous system plays a role in helping to learn, adapt, and perform motor skills. Biomechanical Model focuses on how the body’s alignment in regards to postural control, strength, range of motion, and endurance plays a vital role in impacting a child’s performance throughout their daily tasks. Neurodevelopmental Treatment is a hands-on approach that uses handling techniques to learn and practice new motor patterns for increased independence and participation. They also utilize occupational therapy strategy DIR/Floortime as it allows the therapist to follow the child’s lead and can be an effective method to improve a child’s engagement in session activities.

Stephanie’s commitment to her role is unmistakable, and for her, seeing a child be proud of their accomplishments is the most rewarding part of the day. Watching a child cheer after they accomplish a skill they previously avoided is incredibly gratifying to her. Reaching these goals takes patience, problem solving, communication and of course, a lot of fun! The reason she is so drawn to pediatrics is because she can see what a big impact it is having on her clients. The goals she works on with the kids will be used for the rest of their lives.