Community Helpers for Health and Hygeine

There are so many fun community helpers to explore, and this year we ended up focusing mostly on those who help us to take care of our body. Here are a few that we connected with activities in the classroom.

Doctors

Hair dressers or Cosmetologists

Dentists

February was Dental Health Month, so we looked at taking care of our teeth a little more in depth.

Playdough gums and teeth was a favorite activity.

We drew on cavities and germs with dry erase markers, and use toothbrushes and string to clean them off.

Toothbrushing felt board

Toothbrush painting

The Mouth Game 

The afternoon class also had a special parent visitor who talked with us about being a nurse and how we can take care of our bodies every day. It was great!

Brush Your Teeth

We've been talking about things that we do with our families, and this week's focus has been learning to take care of our bodies. Here are some of the ways we've been exploring our teeth.

Toothbrush Painting

This art activity is always a hit. We brushed white paint onto yellow paper to make happy smiles.

Although I drew the outline for their first mouth to paint, one student wanted to create his own for a second go around. He kept count of how many teeth he had brushed and cleaned as he painted, which was a fun process to observe. 

Brushing and Flossing Dramatic Play

I painted plastic egg cartons and the bottoms of clear soda bottles to create "teeth" for us to work with this year. The kids could make cavities using play dough or dry erase markers, and then floss and brush the teeth.

Counting and Adding with "The Mouth Game"

I use this activity as both a free play game and a "teacher time" game- meaning I directed the play with small groups or individuals. I played this with individual students, and varied the objectives depending on their level and understanding. The simplest way to play is to roll the dice and add that number of teeth to the mouth. It's a great way to build number sense, and practice counting and creating sets with one-to-one correspondence

I added additional challenges for my pre-K students, such as determining the partners of 10 (each mouth has 10 spaces) or adding their previous number with their new number to determine the new total.

If you play this game like a race, where you take turns and see who can fill up their mouth first, then it lends itself to some great math talk about who has the most, who has the least, how many spaces are left, etc.

Felt Board Singing and Play

I also have some felt board pieces of a mouth and teeth that I use for songs and other activities. I often use this mouth with small black pieces to talk about cavities, and involve the kids in brushing them away as we talk about how to keep our teeth strong and healthy. 

Thanksgiving Dinner Collage Art

As part of our healthy body theme, we spent some time exploring food and eating. We also talked about table manners and being polite while eating. We read How Do Dinosaurs Eat Their Food?

And practiced setting the table at this dishes sorting center.

After we talked about some of the foods traditionally eaten on Thanksgiving, we also had a pretend Thanksgiving Dinner.

 First we made our own place settings:

I modeled how to go to the food table and select one food item at a time to take back to their plate.  I also added a counting element to this activity because we are always working on careful counting.

Once the students counted out and added all of the food, they could go back for seconds if they wanted more.

In the end, each student had a fun Thanksgiving Dinner collage. This activity was great for practicing counting, spatial awareness, fine motor (drawing and glueing), and using vocabulary about food and eating.

Squeaky Clean Sensory Bin

This sensory bin has been pretty popular.

I introduced this hand washing and bathing sensory bin as part of our healthy body unit. All it took was some sponges, foam cut-outs, soap, and water. Our hands have never been cleaner.