Preschool

Learning about staying healthy is part of learning about ourselves. Children can begin to care for their body’s needs, by doing simple tasks like brushing their teeth. We enjoyed these fun healthy teeth lessons as part of our All About Me theme from Experience Curriculum.

Healthy Teeth Lessons for Preschool

Children learn through play so why not learn about healthy teeth lessons through pretending to brush teeth and art? See what we did with the Experience Preschool curriculum.

Teeth Cleaning STEAM Station

The teeth cleaning STEAM Station asks the question, “Why is it important to brush teeth?” A very important lesson for little ones who may be just learning to brush their own teeth.

Set Up a STEAM Station

You can see the materials need for one of our healthy teeth lessons labeled in the picture above. At a minimum, you will need, ice cube trays, shaving cream, toothbrushes. I added a bin of water for rinsing, a Big Question poster, and Inspiration Photos that add context to this play station.

I also included the book, Bear’s Loose Tooth, we were going to read that day. It’s fun to look at the cover and anticipate the story.

Concerned about using shaving cream in the early childhood classroom? Read this “the infamous “shaving cream article”.

I squirted a bit of shaving cream onto the ice cube tray and the children used the toothbrushes to “clean the teeth.” Spreading around the shaving cream and brushing in the grooves and in between is good practice. It required holding using both hands (both sides of the body and brain) and fine motor skills to brush the teeth.

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I encouraged them to dip the toothbrush into the water to rinse it and brush some more in order to make the shaving cream last as long as possible.

It was fun to dunk the whole tray as well. I figure it’s an exploration and everyone does things differently so I tried to be patient as they explored ways to clean the teeth. After all, it’s a sensory play experience.

Table Top Activities

During the last few weeks of summer, we enjoyed spending most of our days outdoors. I love our outdoor classroom on the deck! Sadly, those days are ending soon.

I brought out several fun activity trays or bins for them to take turns with. We had connecting cubes, alphabet popsicles, a tooth counting/pulling game with beads and tweezers (from the All About Me theme), and a dentist set for pulling teeth. I added the mouth diagram from the Experience Curriculum STEAM Station to it.

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My kids love this dental mouth model! It’s funny and it’s great for pretending to brush or counting teeth.

Brushing Teeth Process Art

The brushing teeth process art activity is a fun one, using a toothbrush to paint!

Sometimes we can overthink these activities and wonder how it “should be” done. In the end, this is just process art in which the children explore the materials while making art. Using a unique tool for painting expands minds, ideas, and encourages creative thinking.

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I choose to provide a variety of paint colors because the idea is to just paint with a toothbrush. Who cares what colors?? There is room for interpretation though, and no right or wrong way to do this creative art project.

Some other ideas for creative art for Healthy Teeth Lessons include:

• Pretend paint is toothpaste and brush the whole tooth
• Brush the paper tooth to practice circle, diagonal, up and down motions – with or without paint
• Laminate the paper tooth shape. Draw “cavities” or the “junk” that collects on teeth during the day with black dry erase marker. Used shaving cream as toothpaste and brush the teeth. Use a wet paper towel to wipe away the “paste”.
• Use white paint to “brush toothpaste” onto the tooth
• Water down glue and brush the tooth. The glue will bubble. May add a drop of soap.

More All About Me Activities

• Noodle Brain STEAM Station
• Preschoolers Can Draw Self Portraits
• All About Me
• Smelling Sensory Bottles
• Personality Plus Preschool Display
• Self Portrait Center

>> Check out these 60 Shaving Cream Ideas for art, play, and learning from The Artful Parent.