Dentist Play Dough Pretend Play

Tinker has a dentist appointment coming up. Although she’s been generally comfortable with the dentist in the past, she has developed a little bit of anxiety lately. To help her get ready I set up this dentist play dough invitation, and we’ve been reading some picture books about the dentist. By doing so, she’s been able to share a little about her concerns, and she’s also learned more about the importance of good dental hygiene. Since February is Dental Health month, I thought some of your kids might enjoy this fun activity and learning lesson, too.

Materials

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To set up the play dough invitation I made a basic batch of play dough and colored it with rose icing colors.  I did my best to form the dough into the shape of a lower jaw. Then I added white pony bead teeth (yes, there are more teeth than humans have, but nobody said we were pretending to be human dentists).

I set the play dough out with Gator Grabber Tweezers, lanyard string, and a clean toothbrush.

Dr. Tinker was super excited to get to work on those teeth. She insisted that her patient had sore teeth, and she need to fix them all. She even added soothing words to assure her patient that she was going to make everything all better.

It takes a lot of fine motor control to pull those teeth, but she did it. Then she brushed them all individually before placing them back into their spots. (We did stop to talk about the fact that dentists don’t pull teeth often, and that this was just a fun way to play pretend. She understood this.)

I’m not sure how her next dentist appointment will go, but I do think this was a fun learning experience for Tinker.

Below you’ll find some of the books we read about the dentist.

How do you calm your kids’ fears about the dentist? I’d love to hear your tips in the comments.

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