The Blog

Climbing Stairs is a really important motor skill for kids to develop. This skill is used in every day life. Go up and down flights of stairs, go and down curbs, going to the stairs to the slide on the playground, and getting on and off a school So , today we are going to talk about how stair climbing develops and how to support kids as they learn this skill. 

Jumping is an important gross motor skill that kids develop between the ages of 2-3. Jumping comes in many shapes and sizes with varying levels of difficulty ranging from a simple vertical jump to the more complex jumping forward, jumping over, and jumping down. Most kids are able to jump getting both feet off of the ground boy age 2. Now the amount of clearance from the ground isn’t super important in the beginning, what you are looking for is your child’s ability to bend their knees and propel upward.

The Alphabet Freeze Dance Series is complete. This series contains 26 videos, one for each letter. In the videos we…

• Practice drawling the letter with our whole arm to promote shoulder stability and learning. When you are ready to practice each letter on paper, be sure to use the Alphabet Letter Packet I created to go along wit this series. You can find it here: Alphabet Dot Letter Packet

• Dance and Freeze our bodies to improve executive function, cardiovascular health, and creative movement.

• Learn 5 vocabulary words that begin with our focus letter. I have created an entire worksheet series that has all of the vocabulary letter from these videos. You can find it here: Vocabulary Worksheets

Session Plans is an All Inclusive resource for School Based Physical Therapists looking for less stress and more fun.

This curriculum includes activities modified for ages 3-21 and all mobility levels.

Research tells us that Learning and Movement go hand in hand. This is why I created the Alphabet Freeze Dance Series on YouTube. Each video in this series has 3 important components:

1. Practice writing the letter in the air. The key to handwriting is creating shoulder stability and learning the letter movement pattern on a large scale before attempting small movement. At the beginning of each video we practice.

2. 5 Vocabulary words that engage students starting with the featured letter in the video. For example, the Letter A words are: Apple, Airplane, Ant, Arrow, and Alligator. During the video we dance along with images and video clips of each vocabulary words. When the images and music stop, we FREEZE our bodies. This simple activity combines strength, cardiovascular endurance, balance, and coordination with letter recognition, vocabulary skills, and site words.

3. After each video you can use the printables from my shop to practice capital letter, lowercase letters, and vocabulary words.

I recently published a new video: Exercises for the Mouth and Face | Oral Motor Exercises. This new video is my second follow along video that focuses on the muscles of the mouth and face. If you are like most people, you are probably wondering a few things:

1. Do we actually have muscles in our mouth and face?

2. What in the world are Oral Motor Exercises?

If you have been here before, you know that I LOVE Painter’s Tape! Here are 2 of the reasons that I love it:

1. Painter’s tape is a really inexpensive tool that can be used for hundreds of different games. You can pick up painter’s tape at most Big Box stores and even the Dollar Tree.

2. Painter’s Tape is designed to be safe on surfaces and not cause any damage.

I LOVE Painter’s Tape for 2 reasons:

1. Painter’s tape is a really inexpensive tool that can be used for hundreds of different games. You can pick up painter’s tape at most Big Box stores and even the Dollar Tree.

2. Painter’s Tape is designed to be safe on surfaces and not cause any damage.
   

Here are 3 Fun Fine Motor Activities that you can do with your kids using Painter’s Tape….

Jumping is one of my favorite gross motor skills. There are so many different versions of this one skill that kids can practice and incorporate into play which makes it really versatile and fun. Jumping also challenges both our muscle strength and our cardiovascular endurance making it a great way to exercise. Before we dive deeper into the different forms of jumping let’s review some of the terms I just mentioned so we can better understand the benefits of jumping.

1. Gross Motor Skills: Skills that use large muscles in the torso, arms, and legs. These skills are often whole body movements that require balance and coordination. Examples include sitting, crawling, walking, running, playing with a ball, and jumping.

2. Muscle Strength: The amount of force a muscle can create.

3. Cardiovascular Endurance: The body’s ability to supply oxygen to the muscles during sustained physical activity.

We have so many FUN FALL resources for you. I’m talking videos, printables, games, session plans, and freebies.