Preschool and Kindergarten teeth and dental health activities, lessons, and games. February is Dental Health Month! The early years in a child's development are the best time for a child to learn about oral health and to develop a positive attitude about good dental habits. Talk to your children about why it is important to keep our teeth healthy. Explain that we need our teeth to chew food, speak, and have a healthy smile. A healthy mouth is part of a healthy body. With our dental health activities, crafts, and other resources, children will learn how to keep their teeth healthy. Brushing, eating tooth-friendly foods, flossing, and going to see the dentist are just some of the topics your children will learn about. Our fun dental health activities, crafts, and games will help you to reinforce the concepts being taught.
Turn your play area in to a dental office. Display teeth posters in the room. Print out teeth printouts for children to mark the teeth that need fixing. Provide a white shirt, a surgical mask, disposable gloves, paper towels for bibs, a small flashlight, emply floss containers and toothpaste boxes, and a hand mirror (tongue depressors or jumbo craft stick only for older children). Let children use stuffed animals to be their patients.
Cleaning Teeth
Print out a tooth outline and laminate. Provide dry-erase markers and unused small toothbrushes. Let children use the markers to draw plaque on the tooth. Then, use the toothbrush to clean the tooth.
Provide yellow teeth cut-outs. Let children use a toothbrush to paint the tooth white.
To keep our teeth healthy we need to:
Activity
Read any dental story book to your children (see our dental book suggestions). Pass out tiny mirrors to each child to examine and count teeth.
Talk about what teeth need to stay healthy: brushing twice a day, flossing in the evening, and eating healthy foods. Present a printout of a happy tooth and a sad tooth. Ask children which food they think teeth like. Milk and milk products? Explain that milk and milk products help to keep the teeth strong. Carrots, apples, celery, and other crunchy fruits and vegetables? They help to clean our teeth. Ask about foods that can contribute to tooth decay and cavities such as soda drinks, sweets, sticky candy, crackers, etc. Let children decide and place the foods below each tooth.
20 Baby Teeth
Explain to children that they have 20 baby teeth. Place 20 white craft foam teeth shapes inside a bag. Draw a large open mouth shape on red construction paper. Explain to children that you will fill the mouth with 20 shiny white teeth. Let children take out a tooth from the bag and place it inside the mouth. Count together as you place teeth inside the mouth.
1-20 Teeth Number Line
Write the numbers 1-20 on the white craft foam teeth. Let children place the teeth in order from 1-20.
Animal Teeth Math Activity and Game (Available inside our KidsSoup Resource Library)
Toothy Smiles (Counting)
Draw an open mouth on to red craft paper. Place some miniature marshmallows inside a small bowl. Write the numbers 1-10 or 1-10 on index cards and place face down in a pile. Let children turn over a card and place the matching number of marshmallows teeth inside the mouth. Then count them again.
Animal Teeth
Discuss with children the importance of healthy teeth and why they think it is important for animals to have healthy teeth as well. Use some of our animal teeth activities and games.
Gather some plastic foods or food pictures including some that are good for the teeth (fruit and vegetables, milk) and some that are not good for the teeth (chips, crackers, sweets). Cut out two large tooth shapes. Draw a smiley face on one tooth and a sad face on the other. Draw some cavities on the sad tooth with a brown crayon. Look at the different foods together and discuss and sort each food in to the correct tooth. Hand out a happy tooth printable and let children draw their favorite healthy food on the tooth.
Healthy Teeth Collages
Print out a healthy and unhealthy tooth printable. Let children look through old magazines and grocery flyers and cut out anything related to either the healthy or unhealthy foods for the teeth. Then, let them glue all their cut-outs on the appropriate tooth shape.
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View our Preschool and Kindergarten Healthy Teeth Lesson and Activities Health Teeth Lesson Emergent Reader Booklet Healthy Teeth Word Wall Teeth Poster and Label Dentist and Tooth Crafts |
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View our Brush Your Teeth Preschool and Kindergarten Lesson, Emergent Reader Booklets and Activities Brushing Teeth lesson Brushing Teeth activities and song I Brush My Teeth emergent reader booklet Toothbrush craft Brushing Teeth word wall |
Preschool Activities: |
Brush Your Teeth Every Day Lesson, Activities, and Song Brush Your Teeth Every Day Lesson Brush Your Teeth Every Day Song Brush Your Teeth Every Day Word Wall I Cleaned My Teeth Today! Chart Great Job! Stickers and Printables Terrific Healthy Smile Certificate |
Brushing Teeth Artwork
Talk to children about the importance of brushing their teeth after eating meals and sugary snacks. Print out a tooth shape and trace on to gray, brown, or yellow paper and cut out. Make toothpaste-paint by mixing white paint, a little bit of mint-flavored toothpaste, and white glitter. Have children dip a toothbrush in the paint and brush their tooth to make a shiny tooth picture. Encourage children to brush back and forth as they paint. (Note: Remind children not to put the toothbrush in their mouth.) Have children decorate their shiny tooth with a smiling face.
Art:
Make a happy-and-sad-teeth collage. Have children look through magazines to find pictures of "good" and "bad" foods for your teeth to glue on each page.
Healthy Smile Artwork
Cut out red smiles and let children sponge paint 10 upper teeth and 10 lower teeth. Cut sponges in little squares and attach to a clothespin.
Loose Tooth? The Tooth Fairy
Discuss the difference between baby teeth and permanent teeth. Ask who has already lost a tooth. Discuss how it feels to lose a tooth. Explain that the baby teeth hold the space for the future permanent teeth. When the new tooth is ready, the baby tooth will fall out. So it is important to keep baby teeth clean and healthy.