Trusted Carrollton, Texas dentist offering expert dental care, cosmetic dentistry, and family dental services in Carrollton, TX
Josey Lane Dentistry Logo

Activities to Make Oral Care fun for Children

Tooth brushing time can be quite a chore for parents, as resistance comes in the form of a tantrum from toddlers and disinterest from older children. Your kiddos could be resisting brushing and flossing for a number of reasons –sensory discomfort, impatience, the taste of the toothpaste, pure rebellion– but that doesn’t mean you can try to encourage them. We’ve gathered up a bunch of activities that can make oral hygiene more fun for your child and instill healthy dental habits for life.

Play music during brushing and flossing. It takes the child’s mind off the task and can also be a great way to help them “time” their brushing. Youtube has a lot of fun brushing songs videos that also can be fun while your child brushing his or her teeth.

Make a game out of brushing. When you brush at the same time, play monkey see, monkey do and have them copy you (or the other way around) as you move the brush around your mouth in silly, fast or slow, or switch to brushing your tongue. Stop and go can also be a fun one. Think of this game like red light green light for brushing.

Things to do between brushing can include crafts, games that teach about the mouth and healthy eating for oral health, and playing dentist office to alleviate fear of dental exams. Pinterest offers a ton of these options. Our favorites include:

“Egg Activity: Show your child a hard-boiled egg, and then ask her about the purpose of the shell. Discuss how the egg shell helps to protect the rest of the egg and compare the egg shell to your teeth. Place the egg shell in a jar of vinegar and ask your child what she thinks will happen to the egg. After a couple of days, remove the egg from the jar. Have your child observe that the shell is soft and partially destroyed. Explain that the same thing can happen to teeth if they are not taken care of properly. This activity will help her to understand the importance of teeth brushing and flossing.” ~ Livestrong.com

 

“..we used this model of a mouth to show what happens when food hides where the brush can’t get to it. The girls used floss to clean between the egg carton teeth to get the bits of “food” wedged in.” ~A Sense of Wonder Play School

A child’s hand points to a creative dental craft on a red paper shaped like a smile, featuring egg carton cups painted gray to resemble teeth, decorated with green streamers as gums. This fun kids’ dental activity promotes oral health education, dental hygiene, and creative learning for children, ideal for pediatric dentistry and family dental care initiatives.

Create a white board style brush away the cavities project done over on Hoyby Crafts Blog.

A hand holds a red and white toothbrush, brushing a paper tooth with brown spots on a pink background, surrounded by similar tooth cutouts. This engaging kids’ dental activity promotes oral hygiene, tooth brushing techniques, and dental care education for children, perfect for pediatric dentistry and family dental health initiatives.

 

A trip to your library or local book store can get you a treasure trove of books on brushing and flossing teeth that you can use to make your children more excited about brushing. Babble.com has a great list of ten books to get you started. A librarian might also have some suggestions. We love many of these, but HAVE YOU EVER SEEN A MOOSE BRUSH IS TEETH and BRUSH YOUR TEETH PLEASE (a pop up book! ) are two of our favorites.

A whimsical illustration of a moose brushing its teeth with a colorful toothbrush, featuring toothpaste foam and water splashes, from the children’s book 'Have You Ever Seen a Moose Brushing His Teeth?' by Lynn Brunelle. This engaging dental care image promotes fun oral hygiene for kids, encouraging tooth brushing habits, pediatric dentistry, and healthy smiles through creative storytelling. Perfect for dental education and family dentistry activities.

A playful illustration of a lion brushing its teeth with a colorful toothbrush and holding toothpaste, from the pop-up children’s book 'Brush Your Teeth Please.' This fun dental care image promotes oral hygiene for kids, encouraging tooth brushing habits, pediatric dentistry, and healthy smiles through engaging storytelling. Ideal for dental education, family dentistry, and creative activities for children’s oral health.

Both My Kool Smiles and Healthymouth.org have a whole series of dental-based activity pages to choose from. With dozens of topics in fun forms like coloring sheets, nature walk maps, word searches, and crafts, it’s a one stop shop for parents and teachers.

We found many of these ideas on Pinterest, a smorgasbord of fun and creative ideas about making dentistry and oral care appealing to little people.

Brushing and flossing can be fun for your children. By doing fun activities and modeling how important it is, you will see a different attitude towards it and make oral cleaning time more enjoyable for both of you.

This entry was posted in General Dental Articles and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Comments are closed.

2440 North Josey Lane #102, Carrollton, TX 75006 Phone: 972-242-1592
Copyright © 2025 Josey Lane Dentistry. All Rights Reserved. Sitemap.