Dental Care Day 3: Dental Care

Dental Care

Read: Brushing Teeth by Mari Schuh, Flossing Teeth by Mari Schuh and At the Dentist by Mari Schuh

Discuss: It is important to brush and floss your teeth every day, and visit a dentist once a year for a check up. Show an apple. Say the apple will be the tooth. Poke a hole into an apple and say that is what a cavity is, a hole in your tooth.

Cavities can form when we don't brush and floss our teeth. Let it set for a day and notice how yucky it gets in the apple.

Show the child how to brush the front, back, and insides of the teeth. Then show the child how to floss each tooth properly.

Comprehension Questions:

1. How can we take care of our teeth? Brush, floss, and visit the dentist

Stained Teeth

Discuss: Soda is bad for your teeth. It can stain them brown. You should brush your teeth after you drink soda.

Materials:

Hard boiled egg
Cola
Cup
Old toothbrush

Directions:

Show the hard boiled egg. Doesn't it look nice and white like our teeth? Why is there a shell around the egg? Because the shell protects the egg. Our teeth are protected by the enamel just like the egg.
Put the egg in a cup.
Pour in the cola.
Let it set for at least an hour (the longer the better).
When you take it out notice how dark it looks now. That's what happens to our teeth if we don't brush after drinking soda.
Try to brush away the brown with an old toothbrush. It's hard to get every bit of the brown, just like it's hard to get every bit of every tooth in our mouths. We need to brush every part of every tooth every day.

Brushing Molars

Discuss: It is important to brush all around every tooth, not just the front of the teeth. We discussed the Proper Way to Brush our Teeth from page 2 of this download that I found.

Materials:

Soda Bottle
Scissors
White Paint
Old Toothbrush

Directions:

Cut off the bottom of the soda bottle.
Paint it white to look like a molar.
Show the child how to brush all of the tooth, not just the front where you can see.

Flossing Teeth

Discuss: It is important to floss your teeth to get the food that the toothbrush can't reach.

Materials:

Egg Carton
Tissue Paper
Floss
Red Construction Paper
Glue

Directions:

Cut apart each section of the egg carton.
Cut out a semi-circle from the red paper.
Glue the egg carton sections around the round part of the red paper for the teeth.
Stick pieces of tissue paper in between the teeth.
Use the floss to get out the tissue paper.

Dental Care Day 2: Types of Teeth

Types of Teeth

Read: All About Teeth by Mari Schuh and Snacks for Healthy Teeth by Mari Schuh

Discuss: Humans have 20 baby teeth and then at age 6 or 7 they begin to fall out and we get 32 permanent teeth. There are 206 bones in your body. Of those 206 bones, which are the hardest ones? Yes, teeth are the hardest bones in the human body. If teeth are so hard and strong, then why do they decay and break? Well, it’s because of the germs. We get germs in our teeth when we eat, so we must brush our teeth every day.

Incisors- front 8 teeth for cutting

Canine- 1 next to each outside incisor for tearing

Molars- the back teeth for grinding

Comprehension Questions:

What are the incisors used for? Cutting
What are the canines used for? Tearing
What are the molars used for? Grinding

Totally Teeth!

Discuss: We talked about page 4 and did page 5 of the Parts of a Tooth Speedy Science download.

Activity: Then we did the Totally Teeth! activity that I found on pave 27 in The Best of THE MAILBOX Theme Series: Dental Health (Grs. K-1). J just cut out the types of teeth from the bottom and glued them into the mouth where each type belonged.

Mouth Model

Materials:

Mouth Model download
Pink construction paper
glue
scissors

Discuss:

Incisors- for cutting

Canine- for tearing

Molars- for grinding

Directions:

Cut out the white teeth strips.
Cut out 2 stripes of pink paper 1 inch by 10 inches for the gums.
Cut out 1 piece of pink paper 4x4 inches.
Glue the white teeth to the inside of the gums so that only the teeth stick out.
Then glue the ends of the pink strips to the pink square piece bending the teeth in the shape of a mouth.

Baby Teeth

Discuss: We discussed page 17 of Parts of a Tooth Speedy Science and looked at J's baby book to see when he got his teeth.

Directions:

Look at baby book and see when you got your teeth.
Look at the sheet and compare.
Try to remember when you lost your first tooth and which one it was.
Look at the sheet and compare.

The Tooth Fairy Came Last Night

We used this free download to complete the fun poem called The Tooth Fairy Came Last Night and to review coins and their value.

Dental Care Day 1 -Tooth Anatomy

Tooth Anatomy

Read: I Know Why I Brush My Teeth by Kate Rowan

Discuss: Our teeth are very important. They help ups eat and talk. It is very important to take good care of your teeth so you will have them forever.

Crown- The part of the tooth that you can see sticking out of your gums.

Root- The part of the tooth that holds the tooth to the bone.

Enamel - A hard substance the covers the tooth and lies over the dentin.

Dentin - A yellow substance, harder than bone, that makes up most of the tooth.

Pulp - The innermost layer of the tooth.

Cementum – Covers the root of the tooth.

Comprehension Questions:

What is the part of the tooth that you can see called? The Crown
What is the part of the tooth that is under the gums connected to the jaw called? The Root
What is the hard protective covering on the tooth called? The Enamel

Tooth Diagram

Discuss: We used the diagram on page 3 of the Parts of a Tooth Speedy Science download. I also found a good diagram on page 23 of The Best of THE MAILBOX Theme Series: Dental Health (Grs. K-1) that I used.

Enamel - A hard substance the covers the tooth and lies over the dentin.

Root- The part of the tooth that holds the tooth to the bone

Pulp - The innermost layer of the tooth.

Dentin - A yellow substance, harder than bone, that makes up most of the tooth.

Materials:

Construction Paper
Glue
Pen
Scissors

Directions:

Cut a tooth outline from white paper. Or use the pattern on page 15 of The Best of THE MAILBOX Theme Series: Dental Health (Grs. K-1)
Cut out a pink tooth outline a bit smaller than the white one.
Cut out a red piece even smaller than the pink one.
Label the top of the white “enamel” and the bottom “root”
Label the pink “dentin” and the red “pulp”.

Number Crunching

I found a free Number Crunching subtraction worksheet. We used it to review barrowing to solve subtraction problems.

Set of Teeth Game

I found this Set of Teeth Game that we played with mini marshmallows. We rolled the dice and added that many marshmallows to our set of teeth.

Edible Teeth

Materials:

Apple slices
Mini marshmallows (we used the mini marshmallows from the activity above so the boys didn't have too many sugary foods while I was trying to teach them about taking care of our teeth)
Peanut butter