Preschool and kindergarten dental health crafts and activities

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 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 our teeth healthy: brushing, eating tooth-friendly foods, flossing, and going to see the dentist. Our fun dental health activities, crafts and games help you to reinforce the concepts being taught.

See our Free dental health crafts and activities

Samples of our NEW Dental Health unit at our KidsSoup Member Site:

Dentist Puppet	Happy and Unhappy Teeth Activities	Felt Board Pictures	Brushing Chart
I Take Good Care of My Teeth	Teeth Number Line	Counting Teeth Booklet	Toothbrush Craft
My Teeth Activity	Parts of the Tooth Artwork	Race to a Healthy Smile Game	Teeth Beginning Sound Game
Happy or Unhappy Teeth Game	Healthy Teeth Activities	Word Wall	My Tooth Science Activities
My Healthy Teeth Emergent Reader Booklet	Sight Word Match Folder Game	Happy Tooth Crafts	Tooth Tracing
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Free Dental Health Crafts and Activities

To keep our teeth healthy we need to:

• Brush our teeth twice a day with fluoride toothpaste
• Floss every day
• Brush teeth after eating or drinking sweet food or drinks
• Eat lots of foods that contain calcium, such as cheese, yogurt, and milk
• Eat lots of crunchy foods such as carrots, apples and celery which are natural teeth cleaners
• Visit the dentist regularly

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. Place a printout of a happy tooth and a sad tooth. Ask children which food they think teeth like? Milk and milk products? They 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 food below each tooth.
Lost Tooth Certificate	Happy Tooth Coloring	Protect your Tooth!	The Way to Healthy Teeth

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 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.

Rhyme:
I know how to brush my teeth
I brush on top and underneath
Up like a rocket
Down like a plane
Back and forth like a choo-choo train.
(Author Unknown)

Got my toothpaste, got my brush,
I won't hurry, I won't rush.
Making sure my teeth are clean,
Front and back and in between.
When I brush for quite a while,
I will have a happy smile!
(Author Unknown)

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.

Song: The Dentist Says
(Tune: Row, Row, Row Your Boat)

The dentist says please brush your teeth
to have a healthy smile,

Up and down and up and down
Brush them twice a day.

The dentist says please floss your teeth
to have a healthy smile

In between and back and forth
Floss them once a day.

The dentist says please eat good food
to have a healthy smile

Carrots, apples and crunchy food
clean your teeth all day.
(Author Unknown)

Loose Tooth – 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.

Dental Books

Read a Tooth Fairy Book.
The Tooth Fairy Book by Deborah Kovacs
Dear Tooth Fairy by Kath Mellentin and Tim Wood