A visit to our new dentist was in order recently, so I decided it would be the perfect time for a unit on teeth and dentists. I would also like to point out that one VERY handy and cheap little item we use for our own Miss A is a timer which has a button for brushing teeth and a button for washing hands. She hits the tooth button and a light flashes and continues flashing (faster as the time counts down) until it turns red to let her know it is time to stop brushing her teeth (or washing her hands if that was the button pushed). It is sooooo wonderful to have because it is a good visual aid to help her know how long she should take when brushing her teeth (or washing hands) in order to do a good job. I will post a link below if you are interested. Without further ado, here are a few activities from our week:
I saw this activity (see here) and loved the idea of teaching flossing by using legos and playdough so that is what we did! :) Lots of other cute stuff on the same site!
Another activity (see site here) used egg cartons for teeth. I chose to smear different kinds of real food on AND in between the "teeth", and Miss A would practice brushing them in the bathroom until she was able to get them sparkly clean again. She loved this!
Losing baby teeth is part of growing up, so we made a mouth full of twenty baby teeth and then made up stories about losing teeth and number sentences to show how many teeth were lost and how many teeth were left. :) I believe I saw this idea on a first grade website as well but cannot remember where (if you know or see it, please feel free to send me the link so I can post it here).
Welcome to our Toothpaste Factory! I used leftover shaving cream and paint to create a toothpaste making factory for my daughter. She chose what "flavor" each color of paint would be, labeled them, and then mixed them into the shaving cream to make a new "flavor" of toothpaste.
The fun did not end there though. I cut out some large white paper teeth, gave her a toothbrush and let her practice brushing (circular motions)/painting the teeth with her new toothpaste mixes. :)
We also read books related to our theme (see below). By the way, while I was browsing books on Amazon, I found some pretty neat looking activities that I wish we had had for this week's theme. I know Miss A would have loved the Playdough drill and fill set! Oh well, maybe next year. I added them to the links below in case you were interested in supplementing your own dental unit at home or in the classroom...