The Tooth Fairy Unit Study

The Tooth Fairy and her Teeth

Happy Mother's Day, Tooth Fairy with Umbrella
Available on Allposters.com

Cuddle up to the Tooth Fairy or some of her teeth and read a great book about teeth like The Real Tooth Fairy.

After Elise loses her first tooth, she lies awake and waits for the tooth fairy's visit, only to discover the tooth fairy is her own mother! Later, her mother tells her the tooth fairy can disguise herself to look like someone the child knows and trusts.

Open Wide

There's Teeth Inside!

"Before the principal's announcements, will you all please stand and recite our pledge:

" pledge allegiance to this mouth and to the dentist who takes care of us. And to the gums on which we stand, strong and healthy, with toothbrushes and toothpaste for all."

It's time for tooth school and Dr. Flossman is excited to meet the incoming class of 32--eight incisors, four canines, eight premolars, and twelve molars, including the four wisdom teeth.

There's just so much to learn--from brushing and flossing to dentin and pulp to every student's nightmare: tooth decay!

Best read with a toothbrush in hand, this hilarious book is full of interesting facts.

Brush, Brush, Brush Your Teeth

To the tune of Row, Row, Row Your Boat

Brush, brush, brush your teeth,
Brush them night and day.
Up and down and all around.
Brush the germs away.

Floss, floss, floss your teeth.
Floss them every day.
Up and down and all around.
Floss the germs away.

Write about your teeth

1. Write letters to the Tooth Fairy.
2. Pretend to be a Tooth Fairy and write a response to someone else's letter.

The Tooth Book

Activities to Accompany The Tooth Book

The Tooth Book by Dr. Seuss uses simple words to celebrate teeth. My children loved this book and always asked me to read it to them over and over.

Activity: Look for words that are repeated often in the text. After reading The Tooth Book several times you can model how to use highlighter tape to find words in a book.

Tooth Book Highlighter Tape Center:
Read the Tooth Book with a friend and highlight each time you find the words tooth or teeth.

Pop The Tooth Book and some Highlighter Tape into a Tote bag with a stuffed alligator or other toothy animal, a tooth brush, and a non-fiction book about teeth and you have a Literacy Bag that your students will beg to take home for homework.

Alligators Floss their Teeth

Alligator Pie, Alligator Pie... after alligators finish their pie they must floss their teeth.

Encourage flossing by having children practice flossing the alligator's teeth.

The motion of flossing also helps with the fine motor coordination needed for writing.

Why do Dentists fill cavities?

Jimmie uses Lapbooks to help her child organize the information she has learned about teeth and cavities.

Photo Credit: Human Body Lapbook (Cavities)
on Flickr, Creative Commons.

1. Give each child an apple and have them carefully stab a fork into the apple several times.
2. Record the color of the inside of the apple.
3. Talk about how cavities are small holes in our teeth.
4. Let the apples sit out for a few days. The holes will turn brown.
5. After several days record what the apple looks like where the holes are.
6. Explain to them that is why the dentist fills in our cavities and why we need to eat food that is good for our teeth.

How Teeth Bite and Grind

Pliers are shaped like teeth and beaks.

Little Boy with a Toy Dentist Set
Sanders, Walter
Buy at AllPosters.com

Set up a sensory table with sheets of Styrofoam and pliers.

Provide safety goggles and work gloves.

Children experiment with the different pliers to see how teeth work.

NOTE: Be sure to model the use of the tools so that no one gets hurt.

Missing Tooth Graph

As each child looses a tooth they write their name on a paper tooth cutout and add it to the Missing Tooth Graph.

The graph can be used to make comparisons such as there were more teeth lost in October than in March.

Which kind of Toothpaste Do You Use? Graph

Photo Credit: Toothpaste Tube Project
on Flickr, Creative Commons.

Let the parents know well ahead of time that you will be making a graph of the kinds of toothpaste used by the children in the class.

1. Ask the children to bring in the box from the kind of toothpaste that they use.
2. Attach the boxes according to brands and compare.

My! What big teeth your have!

Measuring Teeth

1. Weigh the teeth that are lost.
2. Measure the circumference.
3. Ask children to bring in teeth lost by kittens or puppies in order to measure their teeth.
4. Read about the size of other animal's teeth. Find a picture of that animal's teeth and use an overhead projector to blow it up to actual size.
5. Line up the teeth you have measured from smallest to biggest and label the animals they come from.

Counting Teeth

As children lose and then have teeth grow in the number of teeth in their mouths change quite often. A fun learning center is to have pairs of children count each other's teeth. (Wash hands before and after.)

They might count the number of molars, then the number of incisors and then add the numbers together. They could write these number sentences on Tooth Shaped note paper.

Losing a Tooth Around the World

Does the Tooth Fairy replace it with a coin? Does a mouse come get it? Do you throw it on the roof?

Learn about losing a tooth all around the world.

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth

"All I Want for Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth" is a Christmas song that was written by Donald Yetter Gardner. Gardner wrote the song in 1944 while teaching music at public schools in Smithtown, New York. He asked the class what they wanted for Christmas, and noticed that almost all of them had at least one front tooth missing as they answered in a lisp. Gardner wrote the song in 30 minutes. In a 1995 interview, Gardner said, "I was amazed at the way that silly little song was picked up by the whole country."

From Wikipedia

Lost Tooth Literacy Bag Stuffers

Sal loses her tooth and wonders if the seagull and the puppy lose their teeth. Put a copy of One Morning in Maine into a tote bag with a couple of stuffed animals and a non-fiction book about teeth. Add a couple of tooth related games and activities and a tooth journal and you have all the ingredients for a fun filled Literacy Bag. Children will be begging to take homework home.