Music Video Monday: Sesame Street Healthy Teeth, Healthy Me

The Rundown
In this video Elmo, with the help of his many celebrity friends, sings about how to keep teeth healthy. It is a bit funny that Elmo sings about teeth as he doesn't appear to have any, but whatever the little furry red monster can do to help keep our little people healthy is A OK with me.

Why We Love It
Aiden has been teething since he was about 5 month, getting his first teeth at 6 months. I'm happy to say that we are in the home stretch now, with four left to come in. (They are the back molars so I feel for the little guy). We've been quite diligent about teeth brushing and in the beginning Aiden was happy to oblige. Unfortunately this is no longer the case and teeth brushing has become a bit of a struggle. So this video could not have come into our lives at a better time. Now we sing the hook "brushy, brush, brush, brushy brush your teeth" while brushing our teeth with Aiden's Elmo brush. And this has at least given us a minute or two of distraction time to get the job done. Thank you Sesame Street and Elmo!

Creative Extensions
1. Create and play a healthy teeth sorting game: Draw, colour and cut out things that are good for you teeth (crunchy fruits and vegetables, water, toothbrush etc) and things that are bad for your teeth (candy, sugary drinks etc). Draw, colour and cut out a happy tooth (white, sparkly and smiling) and an unhappy tooth (yellow, dull and sad). Work with your little person to match the healthy and unhealthy things with the appropriate tooth.
2. Use a toothbrush or dental floss as a paint brush.
3. Make teeth puppets using felt and miscellaneous craft supplies. Work with your little person to create a puppet show about what the teeth do during the day.
4. Make apple smiles for snack: Slice an apple into mouth shaped slices, two for each mouth. Spread peanut butter on one side of the apples. Stick four mini marshmallows on the peanut butter in between the apple slices.
5. Sing teeth related songs and rhymes:
I Know How to Brush my Teeth
I know how to brush my teeth
I brush on top and underneath
Up like a rocket
Down like a plane
Back and forth like a choo-choo train.
(Author Unknown)

The Video

Happy brushing,
Creatively yours,
Maya :)