Suggested Activities > Image Specific Activities

“Missing Tooth” On his covers for TheSaturday Evening Post, Norman Rockwell created an ideal world where the exuberance of childhood would remain frozen in time for us to celebrate. His paintings remind us of how very much alike we all are. “Without thinking too much about it in specific terms, I was showing the America I knew and observed to others who might not have noticed." — Norman Rockwell Published Sept. 7, 1957

Suggested Activity: Dental Health and Descriptive Writing

Objectives

Students will:

• Use visual-thinking strategies to analyze the “Missing Tooth” image.
• Create a graph of teeth lost.
• Identify names of teeth.
• Demonstrate how to brush their teeth.
• Write a descriptive story about loosing a tooth.
• Share work with class.

Academic Standards

Supplies needed

• selected Rockwell image for students to view
• art supplies (paper, colored pencils, etc.)
• writing supplies
• scanner or digital camera

Optional:

• drawing software
• word-processing software

Procedure

1. Use “A Teacher’s Guide to Looking at and Talking About Art” to introduce visual-thinking strategies to your class. Complete this activity with the following “Be an Art Detective” activity.
2. Make a graph of how many teeth your class has lost. For example: Who has lost three teeth?
3. Read “I know why I brush my teeth,” by Kate Rowan. It discusses the names of your teeth, how to take care of them and why we need to take care of them.
4. Discuss visits to the dentist office.
5. Listen to “Andrew’s Loose Tooth,” by Robert Munsch, on cassette tape and play it for the students. He has great voice in his story and will help give students ideas about using descriptive words in their writings.
6. Student can write about a time when they lost a tooth.
7. Students can express great voice in their writings and share them with the class.
8. Convert student work to digital format.
9. Make an e-scrapbook.

Enrichment Activities

• Have a local dentist come talk with your students about dental health care. Most dentists will give the kids a packet of activities and a toothbrush to take home.
• Read “Throw Your Tooth on the Roof: Tooth Traditions From Around the World.” by Selby Beeler. Then have the kids write a story about their family tradition for losing teeth.
• Create a comic-strip picture story of what happened before and after this image.

• Books
  
  

  K-2 • I KNOW WHY I BRUSH MY TEETH. Kate Rowan. • TOOTH TALES AROUND THE WORLD. Marlene Targ-Brill. • ANDREW'S LOOSE TOOTH. Robert Munsch. • WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU TO GO THE DENTIST. Heidi Eisenberg Murkoff. 3-5 • TOOTH DECAY AND CAVITIES. Alvin Silverstein. • OPEN WIDE: TOOTH SCHOOL INSIDE. Laurie Keller. • THROW YOUR TOOTH ON THE ROOF: TOOTH TRADITIONS FROM AROUND THE WORLD. Selby Beeler. • DENTISTS. Robert James.

Assessment

K-2 checklist

3-5 story rubric

© 1957 SEPS: Licensed by Curtis Publishing, Indianapolis, IN - All rights reserved. www.curtispublishing.com