They can crawl to it or bear walk to it or just sit and use a flat hand. You can also work on using an open hand by having the kiddo activate the stomp rocket by having to use a flat hand. Hand Use – You can work on hand strength by having a kiddo squeeze the bulb in their hand to make the rocket go. It allows them to work on jumping forward, up and to a target (all of which can be challenging when done purposefully). Jumping – Kids can practice jumping onto the stomp rocket to get a more powerful flight. Here are some ideas for sensory input to incorporate!

You could easily make walkways of different sensory material as well as the overlays of sensory material to decrease tactile sensitivity or just to increase tactile input (can be used on hands and feet). We put it a few steps into a grassy area so that he had to walk a step or two on the grass to get to it.

Also, we changed the surface the stomp rocket was resting on. With that in mind, we adapted the stomp rocket to add different textures to it so that he would get input from different textures to the bottom of his feet while doing an activity that he really liked. His mom was amazed because he has really tactile sensitive feet, and he was doing this activity in bare feet. Sensory Input – We had a kiddo the other week who was loving the stomp rocket. If you have them retrieve the rocket as well, it helps if they know where it has landed! Because its fun to watch and the kids are motivated they will pretty quickly start to figure out (with some help from you) that they need to also pay attention to where the rocket is flying through the air. A lot of times they miss the actual rocket flying through the air. Visual Tracking – When kids first start to use the stomp rocket they often can’t attend to what they are doing and then watch the rocket go into the air. Some kids have no problem with this, however, some kids will take tentative steps or allow gravity to pull their foot down which doesn’t allow the proper pressure to generate for shooting the rocket off! A trick to give them some success in the beginning is to only put the rocket part way down so that less force is required to propel it into the air. Because they have to pick the foot up a little higher to clear the ‘stomp’ part its harder for them to do a partial weight shift.įorce Production/Regulation – Whether they are using the stomp rocket with their hands or their feet, they need to generate enough force (in a timely manner) to propel the rocket off the end of the stand. Weight Shifting – Again, in order to pick their foot up to stomp on the toy, the kiddo needs to shift their weight onto their standing leg.

Because they have to pick it up higher than they would for taking a step during walking, they leave their foot in the air for a little longer, also allowing them to get a better stomp! Once our kids master the ‘stomp’ part we will have them hold it for a count of (pick a time) so that they have to start balancing on one foot. Single Leg Stance – In order to step on the stomp rocket the kiddo will ideally have to pick up one of their feet while the other one stays on the ground. Initially we started using it to encourage standing on one leg, but over the years we have come up with a plethora of ways to create therapy uses for it! Some of them are listed below: The stomp rocket is one of my favorite toys to use in therapy.

Stomp rocket target