Clubhouse "Teeth", Part 2

Today was highly anticipated around the Clubhouse. The day we get to see what happened to our Clubhouse "Teeth". (If you missed part one of this experiment, and would like to see how it all began... catch up here.)

I decided we would take this big reveal outside, anticipating that opening jars that have been soaking hard boiled eggs in various substances might have a not so pleasant smell. So outside we went, with jars in hand.

The first jar we opened was the egg soaking in Coca Cola. Immediately the kids noticed that our once white, shiny egg was now brown and spotted.

Tapping the egg, it still had a hard shell, but that shell was no longer what we want our teeth to look like!

"Teeth are not supposed to have brown spots!"

"I can't drink Coca Cola no more or my teeth will turn brown!"

Mission accomplished.

The next jar was probably the one that the kids were most excited about since they noticed that the egg seems to have gotten bigger in there over the past few days, and it started floating!


As soon as we opened this one the observations started rolling in...

"Eww, smells like fart!"

"Why does the egg stink?"

Seeing as how this was an experiment in dental health and brushing our teeth, I took this opportunity to discuss how when we don't brush our teeth and we let all of the "mouth germs" (a name they chose for the bacteria in our mouths) build up in there we end up getting very smelly breath. (Bonus lesson!)

Then we freed the egg so we could test for hardness and observe color. Looks like a pretty little Easter egg, doesn't it? Well don't let looks deceive you, this egg had the most drastic change of all of our eggs.

It had no shell left.

"This is totally mushy!!"

"I can squish it like play dough!"

"I don't want my teeth to be yellow and mushy!" (Loving how they continued to draw conclusions between the eggs and their teeth, never losing sight of the purpose of our experiment.)

On to the Orange Juice egg. We opened it up, and everyone took a whiff.

"Smells like Orange Juice!"

Yes, it did. No bad breath lesson in this jar.

They did immediately notice little hard spots on the egg though.

It was the same yellow color as the  egg that was in the Vinegar mixture, but this egg still had a shell.

"This one is still hard, but not that hard!"

"This has icky stuff stuck all over it!"

Even after rubbing the egg, the "stuff" didn't come off. I'm not sure what this reaction really is and I haven't started a Google hunt on it yet because I heard all I needed to hear when a child exclaimed,

"This must be cavities on the egg!!"

Like I said at the beginning of this experiment, which is right here if you missed it, this is Preschool. We get to draw relationships between icky stuff on an egg and cavities. In the end, we have kids who want to brush their teeth. Who learned, in a very hands on and exciting way, that if you don't brush your teeth they will turn yellow, become soft and your breath will smell. If you drink a lot of Coca Cola, your teeth will get brown and spotted. If you drink a lot of juice, you get cavities. Those are all pretty accurate, and valuable, lessons learned.
So I say the Clubhouse "Teeth" experiment was a huge success!!

My consensus on the experiment was validated later at lunch, listening to their conversations.

"My teeth are strong enough to chew this apple. If I don't brush them they will turn mushy!!"

"I don't want soft teeth, then how will I eat my sandwich?"

"Mouth germs make your breath stink."

"Yeah, your breath will smell like cat poop."
(This is when I lost my appetite.)


Eggcited about brushing our teeth,
(I teach Preschool, I earn the right to use cheesy lines like that one :)

Ms. Liz

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