Internet Source for Students

Brush Those Teeth: Sesame Street

• General Information:
• • This is an interactive tooth brushing game created by Sesame Street the kid’s television show. Kids can play this game and understand that brushing your teeth can be fun! This is the best interactive lesson I found on the internet. A lot of the websites and games I found about brushing your teeth seems to be geared more towards parents. Kids need a fun way to learn how to brush their teeth instead of only being told twice a day by their parents to brush their teeth. I could use this game in my class on iPad’s or iPods when I teach the unit on personal hygiene.
    • • Students can play this game in between activities, free time, transitions, or as an activity built into a lesson on dental health. Games are so versatile because children enjoy them and they still are teaching a lesson. I really like how the game sections out how to brush your teeth starting with the front, then the inside top and inside bottom, then the tongue. It is informative and also it takes multiple passes to clean each tooth. This teaches kids that brushing your teeth is a process and you need to spend time on it to do a good job.

• Core Integration:
  • Brushing your teeth is a lesson that all students are taught between 1st-3rd grade but can be a great reminder for 4th, 5th, and 6th graders, especially because at this age, children are going through puberty and are more focus on their personal hygiene than ever before. I could integrate this into a math lesson. I could have problems having to do with time and needing to be somewhere. For example, I could have a story problem that goes “Fernando needs to brush his teeth before the bus arrives to bring him to school but he only has 3 minutes. If it takes Fernando 2 minutes to brush his teeth does he have enough time to brush his teeth and catch the bus?” Then after this question, it would be fun to play the teeth brushing game from Sesame Street because it takes approximately 2 minutes to finish the game. This timing can help students understand what two minutes really feels like and how long they should really be brushing their teeth.
  • I could also integrate this lesson into a writing lesson by having students write out each step of brushing their teeth from beginning to end. There is a picture below of what this could look like.
    • Here are two worksheets that can be used for younger students and then more mature students:
      • Younger kids:
      • Older kids:  
• Standards:
  • National Health Education Standards:
    • Standard 5- Students will demonstrate the ability to use decision-making skills to enhance health.
    • Standard 6- Students will demonstrate the ability to use goal-setting skills to enhance health.
    • Standard 7- Students will demonstrate the ability to practice health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce health risks.
  • Curriculum Content Standards:
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.2: Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, descriptive details, and clear event sequences.
• Brushing Teeth Game

Internet Source for Teachers

• General Information:
  • Get Your Child to Brush Their Teeth Using a Task Analysis
  • I went through many different websites on how to break brushing teeth down into a task analysis and this was the best source I can find because the steps are broken down very literally and are made for children with autism. As a special education major, I was interested in how brushing teeth is taught to students with disabilities, in particular, autism. I like how the website sets up the information to be straightforward and undaunting to look at. Brushing teeth is a vital skill to have and I would want to teach my students with as much clarity as possible. I will definitely be coming back to this website when I am teaching my students about dental hygiene.
• Core Integration:
  • This is a tricky one to create a core integration with but the best subject integration I can think of would be reading and writing. If students were learning how to write a story or learning about steps in a process, or beginning, middle, and end, brushing their teeth could be a solid life connection for students to understand. I could have students write down the steps of brushing their teeth or demonstrate each step in order and then relate the following steps to how books are written. The authors have to create a beginning (step 1) and then a middle (step 2) and the end (step 3). This is a little far-fetched but it might work.
• Standards:
  • National Health Education Standards:
    • Standard 5- Students will demonstrate the ability to use decision-making skills to enhance health.
    • Standard 6- Students will demonstrate the ability to use goal-setting skills to enhance health.
    • Standard 7- Students will demonstrate the ability to practice health-enhancing behaviors and avoid or reduce health risks.
  • Curriculum Content Standards: 
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.4: Produce clear and coherent writing in which the development and organization are appropriate to task, purpose, and audience. (Grade-specific expectations for writing types are defined in standards 1-3 above.)
    • CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.3.D: Use concrete words and phrases and sensory details to convey experiences and events precisely.
• Behavioral Health Works

Internet Source for Parents

• General Information:
  • 6 Ways To Teach Your Children Good Oral Health Hygiene
  • After looking through different parent resources, I came across this one provided by Port Pediatric Dentistry. This blog post discusses six ways parents can help their children practice their oral hygiene. Something that stuck out to me about this source was that all of the examples help the child build a healthier lifestyle regarding their oral hygiene rather than a few tips to get them to brush their teeth every now and then. This is important because oral hygiene is a lifelong journey, and I appreciated how they were interested in building habits! I would introduce this site to my student’s parents/guardians as a newsletter (sent home with students or via email). Something I would also be doing is having this blog translated into the home languages for potential ELL students in my classroom. This way, my classroom can be more equitable in its distribution of knowledge!