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Dental Hygeine Activity for Preschoolers
Germ Busters Activity 1
You will need: graham crackers, apple slices, small mirrors, stickers or labels, toothbrushes, and small tubes of toothpaste, available from local dentists, the American Dental Association, or your local health department. Ideally, you will be able to get two toothbrushes per child, one to keep in the classroom and one to send home.
Give each child a mirror and have them examine their teeth.
Ask the children:
Is there anything on your teeth? Between your teeth?
Give each child a graham cracker and examine their teeth again.
Ask the children:
How do your teeth look now? (They have graham cracker crumbs on them.)
Give each child a slice of apple to eat and examine their teeth again.
Ask the children:
How do your teeth look now? (A lot of the graham cracker got cleaned off.)
How do you think your teeth would look after you ate a chocolate chip cookie? A candy bar? Other sticky food?
What happened when you ate the apple slice? (Some of the food got cleaned off, because the apple is crunchy and smooth.)
Can you think of other crunchy foods that might help clean sticky things from your teeth? (carrots, celery, other crunchy vegetables.)
Do you think that there is some food stuck to your teeth that you can't see? (Yes, sometimes you can feel it with your tongue, some of the food is between the teeth, some behind the teeth, etc...)
How can we clean off all of the food on our teeth - the food we see and the food we can't see? (Brush them!)
And how can we brush them so that we get to all of the food? (Make sure that the toothbrush goes up and down, back and forth, in and out, all around to get to every tooth.)
This is a sample activity from the Healthy Start, Health Education Program for Preschoolers
Give each child his/her own new toothbrush. Have children practice brushing their teeth with just the toothbrushes. Ask them how they think they can reach all the parts of the teeth. Demonstrate the proper brushing technique: up and down, side to side, all around, brush the tongue.
Examine the toothbrush - it will have lots of graham cracker crumbs and other food on it.
Rinse off the toothbrushes and tell the children that they will get to take their new toothbrushes home. Using stickers or labels, write each child's name on the label and allow the child to place the label around the toothbrush handle.
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