Preschool Dental Theme

Ideas for a dental theme Book list

Arthur's Tooth by Marc Brown
A Quarter From the Tooth Fairy by Caren Holtzman
No Tooth, No Quarter! by Jon Buller
Where's Your Tooth by Rozanne Lanczak Williams
What Do the Tooth Fairies Do With All Those Teeth? by Michel Luppens
Trevor's Wiggly-Wobbly Tooth by Lester L. Laminack
My Loose Tooth by Stephen Krensky
The Tooth Fairy by Kirsten Hall
When I See My Dentist by Susan Kuklin
Dr. DeSoto by William Steig
Little Rabbit's Loose Tooth by Lucy Bate
Berenstain Bears Visit the Dentist by Jan and Stan Berenstain

Art Activities for a Dental Theme

Cut out a large tooth from lightweight tagboard and let the children paint it with toothpaste and use a tooth brush as a paint brush, or you can paint with evaporated milk and it will dry hard and shiny like a tooth. Cut out teeth shape from white stryofoam and paint yellow. Let dry overnight. Give children toothbrushes and toothpaste and/or waterand allow them to brush the teeth clean. This may be best done in a sensory table.  

Sensory table

Cut the bottom off of 3 or more water bottles and staple together glue to a wooden frame cut side down. They become your molars models and children can brush these teeth with toothpaste or baking soda and water. Rinsing them by pouring water over the teeth/water bottle bottoms.

Fine motor and measuring

TOOTHPASTE PUTTY
In bowl, mix 2 tablespoons cornstarch, 1 tablespoon white glue, and ½  teaspoon toothpaste (not gel). Add ½ teaspoon water.  Stir until mixture is soft like putty. Putty may begin to harden in 20 minutes; to soften add a drop of water. Projects will dry hard in 24 hours. The more you pull and stretch this like taffy the better it gets. I also keep a small container like a tuna can on the table with a little water in it. This putty dries fast and if the children just dip their fingers periodically in the water and then handle the putty the few drops of water restores the texture. You can make a picture recipe of this and each child can follow the recipe to make their own personal amount of this dough  

Motor skills

Play drop the toothbrush into pop bottle or variety of bottles with different sized openings. Kneel on a chair and place bottle on floor behind chair. Child leans over back of chair and tries to drop tooth brush into bottle.  

Science

What are the effects of different liquids on your teeth? Materials needed: 4 hard boiled eggs, can of coke, carton of orange juice, bottle of viniger, water and 4 small jars with lids. Show eggs and different liquids. Explain that the shell of the egg is similar to the teeth in you mouth. What happens to your teeth if you don't clean off the food. Ask children to predict what do they think will happen to the egg shell if it is left overnight in different substances. Allow each child to set up one substance in a jar with one egg. Water is the control. Place jars of eggs in a box and place by window. Check next day The vinegar will eat the shell and it will become soft not hard like an egg. The orange juice ate at the shell making it bumpy. The coke stained the egg brown. The teacher or students can try to restore the egg by brushing with a tooth brush and toothpaste. It will not help the orange juice, or vinegar egg. It will clean up some of the Coke egg but may not remove all the stains.

Food Activity

Teeth food experiment: Offer each child an oreo cookie or 2 with no drink. Have them look in mirror after eating to see teeth. Offer an apple slice or two and revisit mirror. Teeth should be cleaner. Point out that certain foods stick to our teeth more and we should brush more after sweets and sticky foods or only eat them with meals to limit their sticking to our teeth.

Songs/Fingerplays

Up like the sunshine, Down like the rain, Back and forth like a choo choo train. (act out actions with a pretend toothbrush)

Dramatic play

Gather children for a circle time and after reading several dentist stories Ask them what items would be needed if we set up a pretend dentist office. List all items they suggest and send list home with children asking parents to contribute. Turn your houskeeping corner or area into a pretend dentist office only for dolls and stuffed animals. Some suggestions: toothbrushes, an old lamp, empty clean containers of toothpaste ( the kind that pump up not the tube kind), a dental mask (you can ask for some at local dentist office or find them in hardware or wood working stores), stuffed animals, dolls, empty container of dental floss, mirrors, small cups, clipboards, pencils, old magazines (for the waiting room), old X-rays of teeth if you can find them, dental posters

Websites

: http://www.thesmilestones.com/game.htm (click and drag tooth brush game) http://www.kidzgrinz.org/Main.cfm( go to goggles gloves and gowns check-up video) great video of a young child's check up) http://www.storyplace.org/preschool/activities/clydesmile.asp (online story of crocodile that loses a tooth and color activity with crocodiles and number of fish) http://kids-world.colgate.com

~Sara K Early Childhood Special Education Teacher