Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Taking Care of your Teeth

Today we had a very busy but fun and successful preschool about taking care of our teeth.

Gathering Activity: We played with bean bags.
Opening: Welcome, Pledge of Allegiance, Calendar, Weather
Color White, Number 1, Letter T, Shape Crescent
We talked about how today is 1/11/11, and our number was 1.
The boys each got to write a letter T on the Magnadoodle and we listed a few things that are crescent shaped, including our smiles!

We read a book, "My Tooth Is About To Fall Out," and discussed loss of baby teeth. (I think the boys are all pretty excited to have the tooth fairy come!)

We played a memory game which matched pictures of dental-related items (dentist, tooth, toothbrush, toothpaste, floss, etc.)

Then, we had a special visitor: Amber from Kids Dental Barn! She talked to the kids about how often to brush, what foods are good and bad for our teeth, and showed us the instruments we could expect at a dental cleaning. She also asked for two volunteers and had one dress as a dentist (mask, eye protection and gloves) and the other as the patient (bib and sunglasses).
Now the boys will know what accessories to expect when they go to visit the dental office.

Here are P and J dressed as the dentist and patient:
Amber then demonstrated how to brush your teeth the right way with a huge toothbrush and a cute horse puppet:
After Amber's visit, we had snack time where we made our own smiling teeth! Apple wedges for "lips," peanut butter for "gums," and marshmallows for "teeth."

Here are all the boys during snack time:
During snack time, we also learned a song:

(To the tune of "Row Your Boat")
Brush, brush, brush your teeth
Brush them every day
Up and down and round and round
Scrub the germs away.

Next, we did a "dental floss painting" by dipping a piece of floss into paint and then making different designs on the paper with it. Very messy, but fun.

G, EM, K, P, T & J Painting:
EM, K, P, T, G & J and Teacher B:
After cleaning up the painting, we had two fun activities. First, the boys were each given a little ziplock baggie with a toothbrush, dry-erase marker, and a laminated mouth. They had fun coloring in the teeth and then "cleaning" them with the brush.


After this, they got to pretend play being a dentist or a patient. They did a good job "cleaning" each other's teeth. (Being the "dentist" was definitely the favorite, but they were pretty good at taking turns and some of the boys were even happy taking their turn to hold the light.)




It was a very full day. We had only about five minutes of "free time" at the end of the block, but the whole thing went very well! I hope the boys will be able to put into practice something that they learned today about taking care of their teeth.

5 comments:

  1. Wow! What a great lesson! T has already played with his mouth and toothbrush and he is SO excited to put stickers on his chart when he brushes his teeth twice a day. I'm thinking I should schedule a dental appointment soon while he still thinks it is fun. Go teacher J!!

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  2. E talked about the silly snack all the way home, and has been playing with his big mouth all day. Such a great lesson he loved it! Thankyou!

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  3. I'm so glad the boys had fun. I sure did!

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  4. That was fantastic! E really seemed like he had fun. Thanks for all your planning and hard work.

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  5. TODAY I SAW MY DENTIST AND HE REPLACED ONE GOLD CROWN THAT CAME OFF DURING THE HOLIDAY'S ON MY LEFT BOTTOM NUMBER 21. MY NUMBER 4 UPPER RIGHT BROKE OFF AND NOW I'M SCHEDULED FOR ANOTHER EXTRACTION AND A COUPLE OF FILLINGS. MY DENTAL CARE WAS NOT GOOD GROWING UP. I WAS SO EXCITED THAT YOU WERE ABLE TO DO THAT LESSON TO TEACH SEVERAL LITTLE ONES ABOUT DENTAL CARE IT IS SO IMPORTANT.

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