Tip-Top Teeth Time!

Dental week rocks my socks!  Let me tell you why.

First off, I wanted so badly to be a dental hygienist while I was growing up.  I just loved learning about teeth and was one of those strange kids who actually looked forward to going to the dentist.  I know, weird.  But taking all those icky chemistry classes at the U changed my mind, and now I'm doing what I know I was meant to do: teach! So in turn, having a love of dental health led me to come to school in Minnesota.  I changed my career path, but fell in love with my husband and found a new home here.  Moral of this story: I have my love of teeth to thank for leading me to finding my Tony.  Teeth, you rock :)

Next, and on a more educational side of things, it is a blast to teach children about their teeth because there are so many resources and so much to talk about!  During this Tip-Top Teeth week, we learned all about the dentist, brushing/flossing, losing teeth, the tooth fairy, and talked about our own "tooth tales".

In case I forget to write about it later, I need to mention a very dear friend because he just came to mind.  This week, I renewed my love for Arthur.  I read his stories and watched him as a kid with my brother and sister, and I have to admit that my college roommate and I occasionally snuck some Arthur viewing in between classes.  My kids this week loved learning about losing teeth and the dentist from the book Arthur's Lost Tooth!  Then (if they were good listeners that day) they got to watch the TV episode of the same Arthur story!  I thought it was wonderful how it explained that everybody loses their teeth at different times, and you are not a baby if you still have all your baby teeth! 

Pinterest was my best friend this week, as well.  I have a goal of doing at least one science experiment per week with my kids because they were so intrigued and curious about our experiment during teeth week!  Last weekend, I hard-boiled 3 cases of eggs and bought some Coke.  Monday, I explained that we were going to be scientists and discover what would happen to our teeth if we forgot to brush and floss and have lots of sugar on our teeth.  At group-time, every kid got a clear plastic cup and a hard-boiled egg.  We pretended that our egg was a tooth.  After carefully placing our eggs in our cups, we talked about how soda and other sugary things affect our teeth and what not brushing and flossing does to our teeth.  I poured enough Coke in each cup to cover the egg.  (insert "Woah!" *giggle, giggle* while I poured soda in all the cups) We wrote down all of class predictions for what our egg (tooth) would look like when we checked on it the next day. 

Some of our predictions:
-The tooth would crack.
-The tooth would be pink.
-The tooth would be green.
-The tooth would be brown.
-The tooth would have a hole.
-The tooth would have a cavity.
-The tooth would be smaller.

They were all SO pumped to look at their eggs when they came in on Tuesday!  Seeing that kind of anticipation to learn and discover new things is what I live to see! This was definitely one of my favorite things about this week.

Recycling the white styrofoam egg containers was very easy, too! For one of my groups during the week, the kids practicing their newfound flossing skills on the white egg containers. It worked perfect!

Playdoh and white beans was another fun asset to the week, serving as a sensory, fine motor, math and dramatic play activity!  I have to say that my first time making homemade playdoh was a huge success... and I trusted my recipe I found to be wonderful, since it was from Martha Stewart :) I wanted the playdoh to look like gums, so I kept adding a few drops of red food coloring until it turned to a gum-color.  The kids had a blast counting out all the teeth they needed to put into the gums and also extracting them when pretending to be dentists!

Another high of the week was doing our "Fun Friday" tooth snack! I sliced some apples and had some marshmallow creme, red food coloring and marshmallows. After putting some red food coloring into the marshmallow creme, we had some "gums" to put on our apple smiles and then some marshmallows to use as "teeth"! So delicious and fun.  I think the best part our special snack was having one of my little girls, who never ever eats fruit/veggies, try the apples and love it!  When her mom came for pick-up, she was so happy to tell Mom that she loves apples... Mom thanked us profusely! :)

Finally on Friday, we discussed our very own "tooth tales".  We found out that only 2 kids in the class had lost a tooth.  We asked them how they lost their tooth and how they felt when it happened, which reassured the other children in the class that it's not a scary thing.  Since a few kids in the class have some wiggly teeth right now, it was nice to have them share that peer positivity! 

Lunch-time on Friday was probably the most ironic experience I've ever had while teaching:
after talking all morning about loose teeth and the tooth fairy, we had hot dogs and apples for lunch.  You could probably guess what happened next... one of my little girls took a bite of her hot dog, felt something funny, spit it out, and had her tooth laying in her hand!  She lost her tooth on our "tooth tale" day!  It was so neat to have the rest of the kids see the little girl's reaction and be able to talk to her about it during lunch.  She told everybody that it just popped off when she bit her food, and she wasn't scared at all.  She said she was surprised and thought it was fun! :)

Kid Quotables
(right after finishing calendar/weather with the kids at circle-time)
Anne, wearing one of her favorite sweaters: "Raise your hand and tell me what we're talking about this week."
Little Boy: "Miss Anne, we're talking about teeth.  But I have a question: Is your sweater inside-out?"

(in the middle of switching our groups)
Another Little Boy, quietly: "Miss Anne, I have to tell you something."
Anne: "Of course! What do you have to tell me?"
ALB: "My mom has LOTS of cavities in her teeth."