With Valentine's Day coming up, you can make this day special for your kids as well. Here are some fun ideas that you and your kids can participate in together, while learning, and working on some gross and fine motor skills. Have fun!

1)   Scavenger Hunt: Hide a bunch of hearts or valentines all over the house or room. Place these items in hard to reach spots so your kids will have to get on their hands and knees (quadruped position), tip toes, or run to find them. Quadruped position will help build shoulder, core and leg strength; while tip toes works on calf strength, which will allow for more power with jumping, skipping, and running!

2)   Heart Hop: Cut out large construction paper hearts and tape to them to the floor. Have your kids help so they can work on their cutting and fine motor skills. Put on some music and have them hop on to each heart. You can either have them hop with two feet or one foot. If you want to work on hop scotch, place the hearts into a hopscotch line up and hop away!

3)   Make a heart with your feet: Get some paint and use your feet to create a heart on large construction paper. This will allow your kids to work on balance with their feet close together, which makes things more difficult. To keep them in this position, add a ball and play toss, to challenge their balance to keep their feet on the floor to make a heart.

4)   Musical Hearts: This is similar to musical chairs except instead of sitting, kids will work on gross motor activities. What you will need is construction paper, scissors, and a marker. Cut out large hearts that you can place on the floor for kids to step on. Write whatever activities you would want on the hearts (5 jumping jacks, standing on one leg for 10 seconds, hop 5 times, crab walk, etc.) All these activities work on strength, coordination, and motor planning. Once you have all your hearts, place them on the floor and start some music, have your child and friends or family walk around the hearts until the music stops. Once the music stops, find a heart and perform the activity. Find the link here. 

5)   Valentine's Day glitter and sensory board: For only two dollars, Target has some great valentine's day themed vinyl placemats that would be a great way to make a sensory board. Then, all you need is some shaving cream (unscented to avoid any allergies), glitter, and sparkles. Spray the shaving cream on the board and let your child feel the texture of the cream. Once they are comfortable with the cream, feel free to add some sparkles and glitter to make it more colorful and texture oriented. They can make different shapes, like hearts, and X's and O's. Find the link here. 

6)   Heart straws: This activity is meant to help your child with their fine motor skills. All you need are some straws, play dough, and heart shaped pastas. Find a hard surface, like a cutting board and use play dough to make a base for your stand. Place a clump of play dough on the table or board and stick a fun colorful straw as a pole. Then have your child grab the heart shape pastas and start stacking and unstacking. This will work on your child's finger pinching grip and hand, eye coordination.  

7)   Heart themed sensory box: This is a great activity to help promote learning through sensory input. You will need, a plastic bin, rice, shredded red paper, and Valentine's Day items. Some Valentine's day items you could use include hearts cut out with different textures (felt, paper, glittered ), heart bracelets, balloons, and whatever else you may want. You can promote learning by having your child put in only the felt hearts, and then only the glittered, promoting categorizing. Then you can have them count how many bracelets you may have as they put them into the bin. If you have different color hearts, have them choose the pink ones, red ones, or white ones, in order to learn the colors. Find the link here. 

As parents, you may wonder what is the best product or toy that will help your child meet their milestones or learn things quicker. I'm sure you've also wondered what type of shoe could be best for your new walker? There are so many shoes to choose from that will help make your child the most fashionable, but which one is going to be the best for the development of walking? There is not one right answer, but here are a few things to keep in mind when choosing a shoe that will be right for your child.

As children learn how to walk, their foot plays a huge role in their stability, shock absorption and momentum. The bottom of their foot allows them to feel where they are in space. Therefore, the type of shoe that is worn can determine their walking pattern and stability. Should your child go barefoot, wear a flexible shoe, or stiff shoe?

Some research shows (see below) that the best foot development occurs when a child is barefoot, so the best shoe would follow the barefoot model, meaning that the shoe should be flexible. Going barefoot allows the foot to feel the texture of the floor and gives them good sensory feedback to let them know where they are in space. A flexible shoe (soft material with a soft sole that allows for bending) can also allow for more sensory feedback, similar to going barefoot. However, a stiffer shoe can lead to greater stability compared to a very flexible shoe. It was seen that children keep their foot on the ground for a longer period of time when wearing stiffer shoes, possibly because they are not getting as much input and need that time to understand the environment that they are in. So if your child seems to be a little more unstable, a stiffer shoe may be best for them.

Depending on what type of shoe you decide to put your child in, they typically will adapt to it and change their walking pattern (amount of time they keep their foot on the floor, width of their feet, and speed of walking). Children are fast learners and are 'flexible' to any changes that come their way. As therapists, we are always trying to promote adaptability; so changing the type of shoes that they walk in can be a great way to teach them how to experience a new situation. As mentioned before, there is not one perfect shoe for all children and the need for flexibility vs. stability may need to discussed further depending on your child's needs.  

Keep in mind that the articles referred to focused on children who are developing motor skills typically, therefore, the amount of stability or flexibility may depend on the individual need of your child.

Buckland MA, Slevin CM, Hafer JF, Choate C, Kraszewski AP. The effect of torsional shoe flexibility on gait and stability in children learning to walk. Pediatr Phys ther. 2014; 26: 411-417.

Staheli L. Shoes for children: a review. Pediatrics. 1991;88:371