Teaching Teeth!

Hey everyone!
I've been gone for a couple of days because I have been tired! My sister came over yesterday so that we can work on birthday invitations for my nephew's second birthday and on Tuesday was our Back to School Night. At Back to School night we discuss our curriculum, field trips, and volunteering among other things. Really all it means is that I have to stay at school until 8:30pm. 13 hour days are brutal.
Oh! And, remember the little one that I had some trouble with a few weeks ago? I told you I had some tricks up my sleeve and it worked! Worked like a charm! She really just likes and needs attention so I decided to give her my undivided attention at the end of the school day where it is appropriate and earned. Throughout the day she gets her very own, very special, very secret sticker chart. She LOVES that I call it her very own, very special sticker chart! It gives her that little sparkle in her eye because it is about her. Each time we (me, my co-teacher and/or my wonderful para-professional/rock star/soon-to-be-sub-used-to-be-student-teacher) catch her following directions or doing something nice, she gets a sticker. If she isn't demonstrating appropriate behavior we just remind her to "earn her stickers." We would NEVER take them away from her because she has earned the others and she may end up with none left, then what would we do? Anyway, at the end of the day she and I sit and count her stickers together and she gets that many minutes of whatever she wants. 5 stickers means 5 minutes of anything: computers, ipods, music, read a story. Today, she chose read a story. She and I sat for 4 minutes (I was slacking with the stickers today but that's another story) and read a story together. She was so excited that she could sit with me and just listen and I was so excited that she made it through the whole day and scratched just one person. That's a huge success!!! Do the other kids ask why she gets stickers? Yes, of course, they are kindergarteners! My response is always, "Oh, they help her learn." And that's that. Is it fair? Yup! Fair isn't always equal. She is getting exactly what she needs to be successful. I love when things work out so nicely like that. It is a little extra work on my part but now I am giving her only the positive attention that she deserves. What happened with the friend that she scratched? Well I asked her to apologize and explained to her that I couldn't give her any stickers if she hurts her friends. She then took it upon herself to not only apologize but get her friend a bandage for his scratch. It was a teeny tiny scratch that I couldn't see but somehow 5 year olds can ALWAYS see a scratch! lol. Again, I love it when things work out so nicely. =)
Now on to Teaching Teeth!
This month we have been studying our bodies. We started with the senses, moved into the Food Plate, talked about our heart, lungs and blood and now we are talking about taking care of our bodies. We started the TOOTH activity yesterday and finished this project today.

We first watched a BrainPopJr video about caring for our teeth. If you don't have a subscription to this site, tell your administration that you should! It is fabulous!  Well, Moby and Annie, the characters in the series, discuss caring for your teeth by brushing teeth and flossing. After the video we had a short discussion about when to brush, how to brush and why to brush THEN we moved to the experiment. I talked about what our teeth may look when we eat too much candy and drink too much soda. This is what I showed them:

They are hard boiled eggs soaked overnight in Coke. Then we tried to brush them clean to get all of the dirt and bacteria, sugar and soda off of them.

We took turns scrubbing our teeth clean! We talked about going in circles and not pressing too hard (especially because it would have smelled pretty bad if one of those eggs broke!) I have to say, only one student put the toothbrush in their mouth. I nearly gagged. lol.
I didn't take an after picture BUT after scrubbing them for 3 minutes, like it is recommended we do, we looked to see how white our "teeth" were. Not too white BUT that's because these teeth had never been cleaned! We talked about brushing teeth everyday so they don't end up brown and dirty like these ones.
Lesson 1: SUCCESS! The kids LOVED it!!
Our next lesson (today's lesson) was on flossing. I saw this pin from The Lesson Plan Diva and totally used it!

While this is a fantastic lesson from the Lesson Plan Diva, my kindergarteners are not ready to write about flossing just yet. So I put Googled "Dental Health Poems" and this cute poem came up! I typed it up and talked to my kids about it. SUPER CUTE! Download a copy by clicking on the image. It goes to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.

 Lesson 2: SUCCESS!!

Ok kiddos, I'm off to bed! Let me know what you think of "Teaching Teeth"

Night-night!