dental hygiene lesson

Hello Friends!

Last Friday I featured a dental lesson on my Inspiration for the Weekend {5} in hopes that I would do it with my boys over the weekend. Well, the weekend came and flashed by and I was unable to get to the lesson. So, I put together the lesson for them last night while they were sleeping and we had fun this morning learning about our teeth and how to care for them.

I want to thank my friend Stacy for pinning it and I DEFINITELY want to thank the awesome blog {Sense of Wonder} for the inspiration!!!

Onto our dental hygiene lesson...

We started by looking at our clean teeth.
I took pictures of their teeth and also had them look in the mirror.

I talked about how our teeth get dirty and yucky when we eat food.

I gave each of them 2 chocolate chips and asked them to chew them up - 
of course they excitedly agreed :)

Then I took pictures of what their teeth looked like after they had eaten the chocolates...

 

They were so surprised to see that their teeth were that dirty!!

I poured some chocolate syrup on the bottom of a bottle that I had cut (to resemble one of their molars) and showed them that even when I rinsed it off with water, the chocolate stayed on the tooth. I did this visual for them to see that the "molars" in their mouth will have chocolate in them even after swishing with water...

So I asked them to drink some water, swish it around in their mouth and then I took pictures of their teeth. I showed them that their teeth still had chocolate in it, even after swishing with water...

So, I talked to them about cleaning their teeth after each meal and how using a toothbrush and toothpaste helps brush away all the yucky food and helps get the food get out of the crevices. We then brushed the prop molar with toothpaste and a toothbrush...

Owen does not like brushing his molars. I taught him about brushing the entire surface of the tooth - even the backs of our teeth. Sometimes when we eat really sugary food we need to brush, rinse, then brush some more. He could see where he brushed (and where he missed) through this hands on activity...

Then we talked about the food between our teeth. I made a model of their teeth using egg cartons that I cut up and glued onto a piece of construction paper and the food stuck between the teeth is just tissue paper that I ripped up. We talked about our favorite foods and when we eat them they can get stuck in our teeth, like this...

I taught them about dental floss and showed them how it is used to get the yucky food out from between our teeth. They loved this part of the lesson...

We ended the lesson by brushing our teeth (of course!!) and flossing...

We had such a great lesson and we had fun too!

Lessons born from fun stick in my kids minds and I am so thankful for all the creative Mom's and teachers out in blogland that are willing to share their ideas.

Thank you again Sense of Wonder for the awesome inspiration!!!

ps...

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