During kindergarten, your child will learn about dental hygiene and how to take care of those growing pearly whites! As those gaps in her smile come and go, and visits from the tooth fairy become a regular occurrence, talking about tooth care couldn't be more important. Making a poster on the subject will not only be a fun way to help her to visualize what she's learning, but it will also help develop those writing and fine motor skills which are so important at this age. Try doing this project with your child one afternoon after a trip to the dentist!
What You Need:
What You Do:
- Brainstorm with your child with ways to take care of her teeth. If she needs help thinking of some ideas, prompt her with some questions to get the wheels turning like, "How many times a day do you think you should brush your teeth?" If your child is currently not flossing her teeth, this is a good time to start a flossing habit. This is even something you can do together.
- Be sure to talk about going to the dentist every six months, brushing for 2 minutes after each meal (or at least twice a day, at morning and night) and eating healthy foods. Make sure that you make the connection with her between the foods that she eats and the health of her teeth. Cavities are no fun!
- Now it's time for the poster! Help your child make a poster listing the ways to take care of her teeth. If your child is already a great writer, you can help her spell the words she wants to include on the poster. Otherwise, you can have your child dictate the words for you to include.
- Encourage your child to illustrate each section of the poster, such as the types of food to eat and what her toothbrush looks like!
- Have your child decide on a place to hang the poster - this could be somewhere like her bathroom, her bedroom or even the play room.
- At the end of each day, go over the steps on the poster and talk about how she took care of their teeth that day. Pretty soon, she'll be a dental hygiene wizard all on her own!
If your child has not yet lost her first tooth, talk about how her teeth will soon fall out and grown-up teeth will be coming in behind them. Explain the difference between permanent teeth and baby teeth, and how she'll have her grown-up teeth for the rest of her life, making it especially important that she takes good care of them.
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