Instructions

Concept Development 

We will be actors today and we are going to act out the three important jobs of teeth.Hold up three fingers and have the children also hold up three. 

Our teeth’s first job is…Touch your first finger and encourage children to copy you…to help us smile. Everyone smile! look at the teeth that show when we smile. You are actors!

Our teeth’s second job is…Touch your second finger and encourage children to copy you…to help us chew the food we eat.

Hold up food and pretend to eat it or show on felt board. Have the children make sounds with you. 

• Crunch goes the apple.
• Munch goes the cheese.
• Crunch goes the carrot. 
• Munch goes the meat.
• We need strong teeth to eat our food!

Our teeth’s third job is…Touch your third finger and encourage children to copy you…to help us talk. We need teeth to say words, letters, and numbers. Place letters S,F, T coming out of mouth and say: 

•   S is for smile! S-S-S Smile! turn to your neighbor and say S-S-S Smile!
•   F is for F-F-F Food! turn to your other neighbor and say F-F-F Food!
•   T is for talk! t-t-t talk! 

Here comes the really hard acting part, we are going to pretend to not have teeth.Pretend not to have teeth and repeat the words: 

• S is for smile! S-S-S Smile! 
• F is for F-F-F Food! 
• t is for talk! t-t-t talk! 

See how hard it would be to say those words if we didn’t have teeth? What are the three things your teeth do? Touch each of your three fingers as you say 

• they help us smile. 
• they help us eat food.
• they help us talk. 

Extension:

For older children or groups that have developed longer attention spans, let the children suggest additional foods and tell you whether the food should be crunched or munched and add them to your felt board or picture board.