Healthy Teeth

This morning started out with some messy fun as we played with dinosaurs in shaving cream for our morning job (or blocks for the couple of us who thought that was just too gooey for first thing in the morning. :) ) Shaving cream is generally a big hit, and since we were going to be using it at centers in a way that did not allow for spreading it all over the tables, it seemed like a good idea to get some free play with it in first!

After reading about a trip to the dentist at circle time, we got started on our centers. Our math center was working with Mrs. Horton on making mouth models with 20 mini marshmallow baby teeth. We needed to count our teeth carefully, make sure that we had the same number of teeth for the top and bottom of the mouth, and place them carefully around the edge of our paper. 

 

For our language center, Ms. Heather worked with groups on our Let's Find Out magazine about teeth. We worked on making predictions, using picture clues, 1:1 spoken word to text correspondence, and reading words we know. We also talked about healthy choices for our teeth, and how we need to be extra careful to brush our teeth after sweet treats.

For our science center, we worked on brushing some giant teeth. Yesterday, we read a great story about a crocodile named Clarabelle who had so many big teeth that it took her all day to brush them. So today, we had some big teeth to clean. We used a bit of paint to get them nice and dirty, then used toothbrushes, water, and "toothpaste" (that shaving cream I mentioned earlier) to clean them up. The biggest lesson we took away was that you have to take your time to brush teeth carefully, because just a quick brush will NOT get all the food off, especially with all the bumps on the big back teeth. After some good scrubbing and a quick rinse we had gleaming teeth again!

After centers, we came back to the rug to compare teeth with eggs. We talked about how both are hard, white (when clean) and have a hard shell with a softer inside. This was all to introduce the idea that our teeth have a hard coating called the enamel that protects our teeth. We then set up a science experiment where we put several eggs in soda and fruit punch, to represent our teeth when we drink lots of sugary drinks. We'll leave these to soak overnight and see what happens to the "teeth" when they are not brushed for a day. One egg was also put into a jar of vinegar so we could see what happens when our enamel gets damaged. We'll continue our investigation tomorrow!