February is Dental Health Month; we celebrate our teeth with fun dental health activities. We learn about our teeth, we learn to brush our teeth, and we even use a toothbrush to paint! Also, it’s my least favorite thing to teach because wiggly teeth gross me out. I can handle anything and everything EXCEPT teeth! Seriously, ya’ll. I can’t do teeth. Just talking about it makes me gag. Oh the things we do as teachers…lol.
Dental Health Activities
To learn about our teeth, we use our Teeth Research Project, which is packed with dental health activities and lesson plans!
We always start our research projects with a schema map. The students share their schema (what they know) about teeth. As we progress through our learning, we add new learning. And finally, at the end of our research project, we address our misconceptions.
We use read-alouds and videos to research and learn about teeth. As we learn, we add our learning to graphic organizers.
The students use the graphic organizers we create to support them as they write, graph, sort, and label. The graphic organizers provide support and scaffolding as needed! The students do their work in their research journals!
Kindergarten Teeth Lessons: How Many Teeth Have You Lost?
Dental Health Activities: Brushing Your Teeth
For a hands-on science lesson, we learn about brushing our teeth! And we practice brushing our teeth….and by teeth….we mean eggs! We boil the eggs and soak them in soda or coffee overnight.
The students first brush with water and no toothpaste. Nothing much happens. So we discuss what this would do for our teeth. Then we add toothpaste, and we are able to brush the stains off!
Teeth Art Projects
Torn paper projects are a favorite in our class! They’re great for fine motor skills and always turn out so unique! For our torn paper tooth, I draw the tooth outline for the kids, and they do the rest!
I gave the students an outline of a tooth, and they used a toothbrush to paint the tooth! You can get toothbrushes at the Dollar Tree for 5 for $1.
Dental Health Month Bulletin Board
Take a picture of your students’ smiles. Just the smiles. Hang the pictures on your bulletin board to see if students can identify which smile belongs to their friends!
Teeth Snack: Eat A Toothbrush
We also make a fun toothbrush snack! Imagine how my kids react when I tell them we’re eating a toothbrush! Our toothbrush snack is a pretzel rod, sugar wafer, and a little frosting!
Kindergarten Dental Health Month: Read Aloud
As we learn about teeth, we also read a classic story about losing a tooth: Bear’s Loose Tooth! The kids love the story of a bear losing a tooth and how he gets his tooth out! It’s a great story for retelling and sequencing!
Tooth Centers
Our Teeth centers are available in our Show Me Your Teeth center creation!
Teeth Freebies
For more information, check out these posts:
