Up Step! Double Star Route Game

Great Moving Together Game

This game can be used to teach so many things that it deserved a whole page. You will find the game in many other collections but here is an explanation for the game and a few tips for teaching the game. The simple version of the game is played by simply going up stairs, step-by-step, stopping on each step and waiting to hear the words Up Step! before going to the next step. When this game is played on a stair case at home or in a public place with stairs, you will want to do something exciting at the top. Perhaps you will say Twirl Step and twirl your child around or Eat Step and eat some tasty treat. It is also fine to play the game as Down Step and go down steps together. We jump off our set of steps into a big bean bag chair at the clinic but we are careful to make sure children can jump safely and we hold the hand of any child who needs help to do this safely. Gradually, we add more and more verbal directions, teach the child to give verbal directions, and eventually add pretend play ideas as we go up and down the steps. Below is an Up Step Video Model with two sisters demonstrating how to play the game.

Things to Say on the Way Up

• Up step

• Touch your nose step

• Touch you knee step

• Turn around step

• Kick the step, step

• Flap like a bird, step

• Bark like a dog, step

• Wiggle, wiggle, wiggle step

• Dance step

• Look at Daddy step

• Look at clock step

Upstep for One

As you can see, it can be a challenge for a child to simply stop at each step and not go all the way up the steps and jump off! We help the child at the beginning by holding his or her hand and sometimes, literally, holding the child's feet. Other kids have trouble being the person giving the verbal directions, so we might provide a prompter for the child who is giving directions. Sometimes we have even provided a Talking Button that says "Up Step" and then the child simply has to push the button to tell his or her play partner to go up a step.