A guide for using our resources

Children will identify and explain the steps of brushing their teeth.

Vocabulary: aqua, cavity, squeezing, toothpaste

Health and Safety Focus: dental health

Simple, spectacular ideas to boost your lessons.

• Alan the alligator scares everyone in the jungle with his big teeth . . . until they fi nd out his secret!

• Write the heading How to Have Happy Teeth at the top of a piece of chart paper. Then invite children to share dental health tips for you to write down.
• They can share tips from the issue (such as brush twice a day), or any other background knowledge they may have. Hang the chart in the classroom for Dental Health Month.

• Use pages 2-3 of the issue to do this scavenger hunt as a group.

1. In the first box, find the color words. Circle them.

2. Find the heading. Underline it.

3. Find the picture that shows the last step of brushing your teeth. Put a ✓ on it.

4. Look at the bottom bar. Circle three foods that are good for your teeth.

Skill: dental health, writing

Materials: Make a Healthy Mouth Sentence Strips skill sheet, red and pink construction paper, pencils, scissors, small white pom-poms, glue, string

• Give each child a sheet of each color construction paper. To make the red part of the mouth, have children fold their red sheet in half along the long edge. Then have them cut a half-oval shape, leaving the folded side intact. Next, have children cut a tongue shape from the pink paper. (You can also precut these shapes if you’d like.)
• Have children open the red oval and glue the tongue shape on the lower half. Then have kids glue 10 white pom-poms around the bottom half and 10 around the top half. This represents the 20 baby teeth kids have!
• As the glue dries, hand out the sentence strips and have kids complete the sentence by writing or dictating. Then have them glue the strip to the roof of the mouth.
• Kids can use their mouths to practice fl ossing! Have them use string to “clean” between the pompoms.