Terrific Tooth Fairy Ideas for First Grade Literacy Activities

Terrific Tooth Fairy Ideas for First Grade Literacy Activities
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Try these tooth fairy ideas to add a fun literacy component to your dental health unit. Your first graders will have so much fun reading and writing in these literacy activities about the tooth fairy, that they’ll forget they are learning, too!

Shared Writing

For a great shared writing activity, read a book about writing letters to the tooth fairy. Two ideas are ‘Dear Tooth Fairy’ by Pamela Duncan Edwards and ‘Dear Tooth Fairy’ by Alan Durant.

Both books are about children who write letters to the tooth fairy, asking all of their tooth and tooth fairy related questions. After reading and discussing the book, write a letter to the tooth fairy with your class. Let them help you decide what to write and what questions to ask. You can also do this activity as an interactive writing activity and let your students share in the actual writing of the letter. The next day, leave a response from the tooth fairy in your class for the students to find - maybe propped up on your easel or clipped to a pocket chart. I always like to sprinkle a little glitter or confetti around the area where the tooth fairy left her letter and to have the tooth fairy leave a tooth healthy snack for the class, like apple or carrot slices. You’ll have a class full of excited first graders when they see that the tooth fairy not only answered their letter, but left them a snack too!

Creative Writing

Have your students write stories about the tooth fairy for a fun creative writing activity. Before they begin, brainstorm a list of things the tooth fairy might encounter on her nightly outings to collect teeth - barking dogs, kids who are trying to catch her, getting lost, etc. Then have your students write their own stories about a night in the life of the tooth fairy. If you want to go through the editing and publishing process, provide tooth shaped stationary for the kids to publish their final drafts on.

Poetry

Poetry is another fun literacy activity you can add to your dental health unit. Teach your first graders to use the first letters of the word tooth fairy to write acrostic poems or have them write rhyming couplets or free form poetry about the tooth fairy or any other dental health topics.

Draw Pictures

Your first graders are probably curious about what the tooth fairy does with all of those teeth she collects. Read a book like ‘What Do the Fairies Do With All Those Teeth?’ by Michael Luppens or Little Rabbit’s Loose Tooth by Lucy Bates, and then let your students draw pictures and write about what they think happens to their teeth after the tooth fairy takes them.

Here are a few more ideas for books to go along with your first grade tooth fairy literacy activities. Use them with graphic organizers, reading response journals or just read them for story time.

  • Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions from Around the World by Selby Beeler - Your first graders will find it interesting to learn about what happens to baby teeth when they fall out in countries around the world. It’s a great away to introduce your students to other cultures and their traditions.
  • The Night Before The Tooth Fairy by Natasha Wing - This rhyming book based on the poem, The Night Before Christmas, is about a little boy waiting for his loose tooth to finally come out so that he can meet the tooth fairy.
  • You Think It’s Easy Being the Tooth Fairy? by Sheri Bell-Rehwoldt - Your first graders will giggle over this story about what it’s really like to be the tooth fairy.

You can find all these tooth fairy books and more at Amazon.

These tooth fairy ideas for first grade literacy activities are a great way to get your students reading and writing during your dental health unit. You might want to add these literature activities that go with the book Arthur’s Tooth, to your dental health unit too.

This post is part of the series: First Grade Dental Health Lesson Plans

These dental health lesson plans and activities are great for a first grade dental health unit. You’ll find fun ideas for teaching students about their teeth and ways to integrate dental health across the curriculum.

  1. A First Grade Lesson Plan on Dental Health
  2. Activities for a First Grade Dental Health Unit
  3. Dear Tooth Fairy: Ideas for Literacy Activities in a Dental Health Unit