You can see children’s dentist, Alex, carrying out check ups in the Dentists film ( Part 1, Chapters 2 and 3) – Home learning version, or on the People who help us 2 compilation DVD plus. See the ‘child dentists’ using their ‘tooth inspection sheets’ in their ‘dental surgery’ in Part 2, Chapters 2 and 3 of the film.

Ideas for using the ‘Dental check-up tooth inspection sheet’.

Say that when a dentist looks at each tooth, he or she calls out the position of the tooth to the dental nurse, by saying whether the tooth is an upper or lower tooth, and whether it is on the left or right side of the patient’s mouth. Each tooth is also called by an alphabet letter, A-E, as shown in the following diagram.

To introduce the role-play, let an adult be the ‘dentist’ first, calling out the position of each tooth, e.g. ‘upper left, C’. (‘Upper left’ refers to the left-hand side of the patient’s mouth, not the dentist’s left-hand side). A child ‘dental nurse’ could then tick each tooth space, if the tooth is healthy. Sometimes dentists call out ‘watch’, signifying that the tooth needs to be kept under supervision until the next check-up, perhaps because it is still growing. The ‘nurse’ could write ‘w’ next to the tooth, or ‘f’ if the tooth needs filling.

Encourage children, in pairs, to make up ‘dental sums’ for one another, about ‘Sweet Pete’ (please see Part 2 of the film), e.g. ‘Five of Sweet Pete’s bottom teeth had to be filled. How many healthy bottom teeth did he have?’

Make a 3D model of ‘Sweet Pete’. Cut an oval shape all around the tooth ‘palate’ on the sheet, and stick on card. Cut open a cereal packet, flatten it and re-assemble it, inside out, securing the edges with sticky tape.

Ask a child to draw Sweet Pete’s hair, ears, eyes and nose, with a felt-tipped pen, on one side of the box. Ask them to colour in red, the space inside Sweet Pete’s card ‘palate’. Yourself, put a split pin through the centre of the ‘palate’, and then pierce a hole in the cereal packet and attach Sweet Pete’s ‘teeth’. Ask the child to add a small red, paper ‘tongue’ with sticky tape and to draw a mouth around the teeth. A child ‘dentist’ could now examine Sweet Pete’s teeth, and call out the position of each one if it is healthy, or say whether it needs watching or filling. Ask another child to be the ‘dental nurse’ and to record what the ‘dentist’ says on the inspection sheet.