FUN Dental Health activities!

Did you know February is National Dental Health Month?

I think that is so fitting...considering all the treats we get at Valentines ;) What better time to focus on taking better care of our teeth...and mostly, passing that on to our children? This week our theme is TEETH and we did some fun activities yesterday that really helped the kids visually understand the importance of brushing and flossing. I got both of these ideas from The Imagination Tree...and then adapted them to use things we had on hand and to work with my kids particular ages and stages :)

First up we did a REALLY fun teeth brushing craft. All you need for this is some teeth cut out of yellow paper, some type of dark soda, paint brushes, old toothbrushes and white paint.

To get started we talked about how sugary treats and especially soda can be bad for your teeth. We discussed how these things can be ok in moderation, but when you DO have them you need to make sure you always brush really well after. I let the kids take paintbrushes and paint their yellow teeth with root beer. They were totally grossed out at how brown and splotchy they got...great teaching moment!! You could see them understanding what soda and sugar do to our teeth.

Once their teeth were all dry, we talked about how important it is to brush 2 times a day to get off all that yucky stuff and help our teeth be white and healthy. This is where the old toothbrushes and white paint came in :)

The kids loved transforming their yellow, stained teeth into beautiful white sparkling ones! Plus its always fun to paint with something different...like a toothbrush! :)

While the teeth were drying we did a GREAT flossing activity that visually showed the kids how important flossing is and gave them some really great practice.

All you need for this activity are some pieces of string, long white Mega Blocks and some playdough. I loved that we had some extra Chocolate Playdough left over from our Chocolate Playdough Valentines...it tied in perfectly and since it smelled like chocolate the kids could really understand what treats and sugar can do to your teeth.

You simply squish the playdough inbetween the spaces on the blocks and then show your kids the proper way to floss. They get to use the string to get out all the playdough and in the process learn a valuable lesson about the importance of flossing.

I really loved this activity. Again...you could see that they just got it. They were grossed out by all the brown stuff in the blocks, and definitely didn't want stuff like that inbetween their OWN teeth :)

So there you go! I hope you can use some of these quick, fun activities to teach your kids all about Dental Health! The timing for us was actually perfect since my daughter has a dentist appt today and has been quite nervous. It was great to talk about these things with her and help her feel a little more comfortable and show her how she can be in control of taking care of her teeth.

Have a great day!!

Seven Alive