Old Dog and Elly fear goannas, Ms Chen fears geckos, and Big Cuz fears the dentist. Little J boasts he isn’t scared of anything, but this may not be true. When Mick, Ally, Little J and Old Dog go to the beach, Little J discovers that his hero, Mick, is scared of Hermit crabs. Together, on the cliff, Mick and Little J overcome their shame of being afraid and help each other to be brave.

Explore - Recognise situations and opportunities to promote health, safety and wellbeing

Theme - WELLBEING

After viewing Little J & Big Cuz, Episode 11 ‘Nothing Scares Me’, engage students with the following learning activities to support their understanding about phobias, and how to overcome them.

As a class, revisit Big Cuz’s story within Episode 11 ‘Nothing Scares Me’, and ask students to recall that Big Cuz was fearful of going to the dentist. Poll the class to see how many students are also fearful of going to the dentist. Have students share their good and bad experiences of going to the dentist.

As a class, explore reasons why everyone needs to go to the dentist and the importance of good oral hygiene. Poll students about their belief in the ‘tooth fairy’ and how much money/token gift the tooth fairy leaves for each tooth the students lose.

Access Great books about teeth for kids of all ages to see a list of children’s books with a dental hygiene message. If any of these books are available at the school, create a book box for students to read a selection. Discuss and evaluate the benefits of the dental hygiene messages in the stories.

Encourage students to read/view a selection of other books, or view the videos and songs on going to the dentist, and losing a tooth, such as

• Bate, L., & deGroat, D. (1975). Little Rabbit's loose tooth. New York: Alfred A Knopf. 
• Bell-Rehwoldt, S., & Slonim, D. (2007). You think it's easy being the tooth fairy?. San Francisco: Chronicle Books.
• Berenstain, S., & Berenstain, J. (1985). The Berenstain Bears visit the dentist. New York: Random House. 
• Brown, M. (1985). Arthur's tooth. Boston; New York: Little, Brown & Co. 
• Hall, K., & Apperley, D. (2004). The tooth fairy. New York: Children's Press.
• Holtzman, C., & Day, B. (2009). A Quarter from the Tooth Fairy. Paw Prints. 
• Krensky, S., & Takahashi, H. (2008). My Loose Tooth. Paw Prints. 
• Just Going to the Dentist by Mercer Mayer – Little Critter – Read Aloud Books for Children
• Laminack, L. L., & Garry-McCord, K. (2002). Trevor's wiggly-wobbly tooth. Atlanta, GA: Peachtree Publishers.
• Luppens, M., Béha, P., & Brierley, J. (2006). What do the fairies do with all those teeth? Toronto: Scholastic Canada.
• Steig, W., & Tucci, S. (2012). Doctor De Soto. New York: Square Fish/Farrar, Straus, and Giroux. 
• Williams, R. L., & Heiberg, A. (2013). Where's your tooth. Huntington Beach, CA: Creative Teaching Press.

Role-play

Organise the students into pairs and ask each pair to role-play visiting the dentist. One student is the dentist and one student is the patient. Both students can act out how to be calm and brave as a patient, and responsive, caring and informative as a dentist. Invite students to swap roles. As a class, share the advice dentists could give to patients, and the advice patients could give to dentists. The message should be that preventative action such as cleaning and flossing teeth regularly is better than needing a dentist to save or extract teeth.

Ask students to access and complete the dental Maths and Science activity called ‘What are the effects of different liquids on your teeth?’, found in Dental and tooth themes and activities. Students can also play The Smilestones Teeth Cleaning Game.

In the pairs, have students develop two key messages about dental hygiene that they would practise and encourage young siblings to adopt.

Suggested teacher resource: Review of Indigenous Oral Health (PDF)