A tooth month writing lesson is a great addition to our writing block in February. After all, February is National Tooth Month. It seems an odd thing to celebrate, doesn’t it? Some of our “National month and day” focuses are quite odd.
Nonetheless, we end February with a little focus on all things teeth – both animal and people. Today we read this book.
A Bridge to Prior Knowledge
Have you read it? It’s cute. And very funny. It’s also relatable to little first graders!
Poor Andrew has a tooth that is hurting him and he can’t get it out of his mouth. His mom couldn’t pull it out. His dad couldn’t grab it out with pliers. The dentist destroyed his car when he tied one end of a rope to his fancy tooth mobile and the other to Andrew’s tooth and drove off. The tooth fairy’s hammer could not break it out. However, Andrew’s friend, Luis, poured some pepper up Andrew’s nose. That sneeze that resulted from said pepper shot that tooth across town. It’s definitely a silly, fun story.
And… it opens a whole huge discussion about wiggly teeth. Stubborn teeth. And tooth loss. They can relate!
A Writing Lesson Plan
After we discussed all things loose teeth, I did a sample pre-write plan with drawing boxes on Andrew’s Loose Tooth. Then another example of a story of my own making.
I like to do samples this way so they can see that using your own ideas is just as easy as using the author’s. I encourage them to use their imagination and come up with their own crazy, wacky adventure.
After my examples, the kids make their pre-write drawing boxes for their own make-believe or exaggerated real life story of all of the different ways they tried to get a loose tooth out of their mouth. We call them “Toothy Tales”.
I absolutely LOVE their creativity. I think they really stretch their stories because most of them have some experience with the oddity that is losing teeth.
After making drawing boxes, we take our plan a step further and turn those drawn ideas into actual sentences.
Writing this way makes it easy for the kiddos to take ownership for their stories right from the beginning. The task is not overwhelming and they are excited to tell their tale. (See my post on Engaging Writing for more writing instruction info.)
Want this tooth month writing lesson activity for your kiddos? Grab this FREEBIE in my store. 😀
