Activities for Dental health Month

Since February is dental health month, here are some activities we did last year.
Snack:
Give the kids an Oreo and let them use mirrors to see how their teeth look after eating it.
Then give them an apple slice and have them look at their teeth again.
The children’s teeth should be cleaner after eating the apple. Explain that some foods stick to our teeth more especially sweets and that it helps to brush our teeth after eating these foods. This was a lesson that stuck with the children. They mentioned it several times during snack time over the following week.

Science:
Place a hard boiled egg into a jar of Coke or Pepsi for 20-30 minutes. You could also do this as an overnight experiment, but we chose to only soak the egg for a half an hour. The kids noticed that the egg was stained brown. Explain that the shell is like teeth and that staining and cavities can happen to our own teeth if we don’t brush them. This lesson had stuck with a few of the children as well. We explained that soda was really bad for teeth. One of the teachers brought soda and the kids were quick to point out that soda was bad for your teeth.
There are other variations on this experiment I hadn’t seen. You can use a toothbrush and toothpaste to try to get the egg back to its normal color. It removes some of the stain.
Other variations are to soak eggs in different liquids and compare them. Some liquids to try are water, Coke, orange juice and vinegar. (see link below)

Art:
We took this tooth picture, made copies and let the kids cut them out and paint them with toothpaste. Some kids chose to cut their’s out and others didn’t. The kids painted with toothbrushes. They enjoyed the smell of the toothpaste. We had three tubes at the table and the kids could squeeze out their own toothpaste. Some kids had big globs of toothpaste on parts of their tooth and others had lines of it covering their whole tooth.

We also took copies of this same tooth picture and laminated it. The kids drew on them with dry erase markers and then cleaned them off with toothbrushes and water to simulate brushing teeth.

Dramatic Play
We had some toothbrushes, toothpaste boxes, a plastic tooth set and some other dental props in the dramatic play area. The kids enjoyed taking apart the teeth set, brushing it and putting it back together.

Some other ideas for books and activities can be found here.