Dental Hygiene Part 2: Flossing

Flossing is tricky to teach to a toddler, so I wanted to find a fun way to help my daughter understand how to do it properly and practice.

Here’s what we used:

How to make it:

Fold the pink piece of paper in half and use 10 marshmallows to create a horseshoe shape on the paper (starting and ending on the fold)
Trace a line on around the outer side of the marshmallows leaving a small gap between the marshmallows and the line
Put marshmallows aside and cut along the line you traced in order to create the jaw
Cut out a tongue shape that will fit inside the lower part of the jaw – make it about half an inch longer than you need so you can fold the edge over to glue it down), draw a black line down the centre to look like the fold in the tongue
Glue the tongue in the centre of the lower jaw, lined up at fold
Glue each marshmallow in place as the teeth (I found it easiest to do the lower teeth first and then place the top teeth in such a way that the mouth could still close when the top and bottom teeth touched – the placement of the back teeth is what affects this the most)

How to use it:

Place pieces of tissue paper in between the teeth to represent piece of food
Show your child how to hold the yarn like dental floss and explain how to use the “floss” between each tooth to remove the pieces of “food”

In case you missed it, check out Dental Hygiene Part 1: Brushing