Our teeth!

For our teeth unit this week, we did an "egg"citing experiment. We talked about how eggs are similar to teeth in that they have a hard shell like the enamel on our teeth, and they are white like teeth so can get stained like our teeth if we don't take care of them. For this experiment, we took 3 hardboiled eggs and soaked one each in water, vinegar, and soda. We then let them sit until our next preschool day. On that day, we came back to the eggs to see if they'd changed. The one that was soaked in water remained the same. The one that was soaking in soda was stained brown, and the one that was soaking in vinegar was no longer hard. The shell was still on it, but it was now soft and rubbery. We talked about how important it is to brush our teeth because if we don't the foods we eat will stain our teeth just like the soda stained the egg, and certain foods will eat the hard enamel off our teeth just like the vinegar did to the egg. Really cool experiment. The kids were amazed.

For both a math center and our letter G this week, we made goofy grins! We learned that most of us at this age have 20 teeth....10 on the top, and 10 on the bottom. So we counted out 10 marshmellows and glued them on the top half of our paperplate, and counted out 10 more and glued them to the bottom of our plate. We then let them dry and folded the plate to see our goofy grins!

Smile! Show those goofy grins!

We also talked about how we should visit the dentist at least 2 times a year. We talked about what a dentist does while we are at his office, and then we practiced doing those things at our dramatic play center filled with dental jackets, tools, toothbrushes, and stuffed animals.

We could also visit our playdough center to work on "mustache man" (named by your children). He needed a lot of work done on his teeth! They made him a new set of teeth, filled cavities and there were even tools that the kids could use to make braces for him.

These yellow teeth needed some good brushing to turn them white again. So, that's what we did. We took toothbrushes and toothpaste (white paint) and brushed them clean!

We talked about cavities and how if we get a cavity we have to go to the dentist to have it fixed. At this center, the kids could come color different food on their teeth and then brush it off with their toothbrushes.

We talked about how we have our baby teeth until we are around 6 or 7 and then we start loosing them and our permanent teeth grow in. At this center we practiced sequencing the teeth from smallest to largest, or largest to smallest.

We also had a center filled with real toothpaste, real floss and some big white teeth! (painted soda bottle bottoms). The kids really did great at making sure not to miss any spots while brushing!

We also talked about the letter H this week. For this center, we had to find the hidden H in the picture by coloring the lowercase h's one color, and the capital H's another color. 

Oh no, this crocodile has some loose teeth! The kids helped to push them back down in place, but watch out, if you touch his sore tooth he just might bite you!

Our reading center was full of books about dentists, teeth, and friends, like Arthur, who could tell us about a visit to the dentist.

We started our journals this week. We will continue to write in them once a week. They are instructed to  write their name once with the help of the dotted lines and once on their own. They then have to practice writing whatever letter we are learning about that day, and draw a picture of something that starts with that letter. They will be pros at writing their name in no time!

Books of the week: 

Arthur's Tooth by Marc Brown

and

Just Going to the Dentist by Mercer Mayer