Croc Goes to the Dentist by Sue Graves and Trevor Dunton and published by Franklin Watts is a lovely story about a crocodile who is scared to go to the dentist because she doesn't look after her teeth properly but soon finds out there is nothing to be scared of. It's the perfect book for children who are nervous about visiting the dentist or for children who like crocodiles. The pictures are fun, the words are written in bold and are clear and there are extra discussion points at the back of the book which are a brilliant bonus.
Activities
Play dentists
Make a healthy food poster
Happy and sad teeth
Play with toothbrushes activity
Talk about Croc while brushing teeth
Make Croc
Brush the tooth
Healthy and unhealthy food spot
Collecting teeth (rocks) activity
Mouth biscuits
Fruit teeth snack
Mouth sandwiches
Indoor
The first activity could be to play dentists. You could set this up for toys or for humans depending on how many children you have. You could use the sofa or the floor with a blanket on for the dentists chair and then get a small mirror and your child/children can have their teeth checked by you as the dentist or they could be the dentist and check yours. You can do the same thing with toys and have them as the patients and your child/children can check their teeth. You could make a poster like the one featured in the book for your dentist child to tell the patients the best things to eat. Another activity could be to do a happy smiling mouth with teeth showing on one sheet of paper and a sad looking mouth with teeth showing on another sheet of paper and then your child can cut pictures out of magazines or draw healthy and unhealthy images around the correct mouths. A final indoor activity could be to get some old tooth brushes, some small rocks and some water. Put the rocks and water in a basin or on a tray and then your child can practice using a toothbrush by cleaning the rocks with a toothbrush. In the morning and at bedtime when your child/children are brushing their teeth you could talk about Croc and the story. Your child/children could make croc from the story using crayons or paint and then white bits of card or paper can be used as her teeth.
Outdoor
A fun activity could be to draw a big tooth on the floor with chalk and then cover it in mud, sticks and stones and then your child can use a brush to brush away the mud sticks and stones and reveal a nice clean tooth underneath (this should keep them quiet for a bit). They could use a mall handheld sweeping brush or a big broom. Either of them will help improve their co-ordination and it's fun at the same time. Another outdoor activity could be, when out and about, to spot healthy and unhealthy foods and to talk about them with your child/children. Croc liked eating lots of sweets and drinking fizzy pop so your child/children will hopefully start to think about their teeth when making food choices. Like the dentist said, they can have unhealthy things for their teeth but to try and have them at meal times rather than for snacks. A final outdoor activity could be to collect little rocks that look like teeth and see who can collect the most in a certain amount of time. This is a good activity because it can be done at home or out and about.
Food/Cooking
The first activity could be to make some mouth shaped biscuits and then use marshmallows as the teeth to stick in the mouth. I know marshmallows aren't the healthiest choice but we need to have some treats in life. You could stick the teeth with jam or chocolate spread. Another activity could be to dice some fruit in to teeth shapes and pretend that they are a snack of fruit teeth. If you have the right shaped plates you could arrange the fruit in the shape of a mouth on the plate. For a more savoury dish you could cut sandwiches into mouth shapes and use little square pieces of cheese as the teeth and put those in the sandwich mouths.
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