Fun & Educational Dental Health Activities for the Classroom

Perfect for February or Any Time of Year!

February is one of the most exciting months in the classroom—it’s jam-packed with meaningful themes like Groundhog Day, Valentine’s Day, Black History Month, Presidents’ Day, and of course, Dental Health Month!

While all of these units bring great opportunities for learning, teaching dental health is one of my absolute favorites. Kids are naturally curious about their teeth, the role of a dentist, and how to take care of their smiles. And the best part? Dental hygiene lessons can be seamlessly integrated across content areas like science, reading, writing, and math.

Whether you’re a first or second-grade teacher looking to build a themed unit or sprinkle in engaging activities throughout February, here are some of my favorite ways to make dental health education fun and meaningful.

Start with the Basics of Dental Hygiene

Kick things off by helping students understand why we brush, floss, and rinse. You can easily incorporate vocabulary and key routines using poems and a Teeth Cleaning Chart so students can track their own habits at home. Visuals like Types of Teeth diagrams also help young learners understand the types and names of teeth in a fun, hands-on way.

Dental Health Reading and Comprehension

Young readers love learning about real-life topics! For Dental Health Month, I love to incorporate emergent readers and short nonfiction passages about:

Visiting the dentist
What causes a cavity
How to brush, floss, and rinse
The differences between baby and permanent teeth
Parts of a tooth
Types of teeth
Taking care of teeth

After reading, students can highlight text evidence, answer comprehension questions, and complete fill-in-the-blank activities to reinforce what they’ve learned. These tasks support literacy standards while keeping students’ interest!

Try Dental Health Science Experiments

Nothing grabs student attention like a good experiment! Dental science activities bring the “wow” factor while teaching important lessons about taking care of teeth. There are easy-to-incorporate science experiments about:

Demonstrating tooth enamel and the effects of sugar and soda
Explore the importance of fluoride and dental sealants
Show how flossing gets what brushing
How toothpaste protects teeth

Students can record their observations in science journals using the included templates!

Integrate Writing Into Fun Dental Health Topics

Let your students show what they’ve learned through different writing tasks. Have them:

Write an informative piece about how to take care of teeth
Craft a narrative about the Tooth Fairy
Create a persuasive writing encouraging others to floss daily
Pretend they’re a dentist teaching others about dental hygiene

These writing activities deepen understanding and build excitement around the topic! Included are fun dental health crafts to go with each writing activity.

Include Math and Literacy with a Dental Twist

Math doesn’t have to take a backseat during themed units! Incorporate dental health into centers or daily math blocks with activities like:

Telling time: Students read clocks on appointment cards and write down patient appointment times.
Counting money: Students total the cost for dental health supplies.
Fractions: Students identify and record the fraction of dental supplies.
Place value and number matching: Students match numbers to words and expanded forms.
Skip counting: In this activity, organize teeth cards by skip counting by 5s, 10s, or 100s.
Hundreds Chart: Students locate and color numbers on a hundreds chart to find a fun dental health mystery picture!

Math becomes much more engaging when students are solving problems related to topics they’re learning about in other subjects.

You can also easily incorporate dental health into literacy centers or stations, as well!

Parts of Speech: In this activity, students will sort words into the categories of nouns, verbs, and adjectives.
Plural Words: Students will sort teeth with singular words into the categories or -s or -es depending on what ending would be added to make the words plural words.
Double E Words: When practicing double e words, students can write the room with this fun activity. Students will hunt the classroom and record the ee words they find on the included recording sheet!

Get Crafty with Creative Dental Projects

Kids love crafts, and these projects tie directly into dental health content:

Label the parts of a tooth and turn it into a colorful diagram
Make a version of themselves dressed as a dentist
Create flossing informative writings with a “Why You Should Floss” activity
Create a Tooth Fairy and write about what she does with the teeth she collects

These activities add fun and visual displays to your classroom while reinforcing key concepts.

Ready to Dive In?

If you’re looking to bring dental health, dental hygiene, and dentist-themed learning into your classroom, I’ve bundled all these activities into one resource.

From literacy and writing to science and math, this unit offers over 150 pages of engaging, cross-curricular content to help your students understand and care for their teeth—all while having fun.

👉 Click here to explore the full Dental Health Unit and grab the activities for your classroom.

Let’s make learning about teeth something to smile about!