Circle Time

Choose Healthy Foods


16

Instructions

Let your class know that you will be talking about tooth healthy foods this week (or today) Give every child a piece of pretend food, real food, or a picture of food. Include more tooth healthy foods than tooth unhealthy foods.

There are some REALLY IMPORTANT things for you to know about tooth healthy foods. We are going to play a game with the foods you are holding to help us learn about what foods are healthy and what foods are not healthy for our teeth.

You will help me decide which foods to eat every day because they are healthy for our teeth and bodies (smile), and which foods we should eat just once in a while because they are not healthy for our teeth and our bodies (frown). Those foods are sweet and sticky foods.

Here is a tooth healthy food! Show real or picture of a carrot. It is full of nutrients and it doesn’t stick to your teeth. It goes in the happy tooth basket. We can eat carrots every day.

Uh, oh, here is a not tooth healthy food. Show example or picture of candy. This goes in the sad tooth basket. We eat candy once in a while like at a party.

OK! Let’s do this together! I see someone holding a ____. Do you think____ is tooth healthy or not tooth healthy? Why do you think so. Use prompts to help children categorize. Is it crunchy? Is it sticky? Is sweet?

When each food has been talked about summarize by saying: We sorted all the foods. Let’s eat some foods today that will make our bodies and teeth healthy. What should we do with these? (Point at sad tooth basket.) Yes! Save them for a special day so our teeth will not be sad!

Extension:

Use this knowledge in conversations at meal and snack times.




Share this activity