Today, I just can’t stop smiling! Do you want to know why? It’s because I want to show off my teeth! Teeth aren’t just for smiles; they’re super important for one of my favorite things… eating!
What do you like to eat? I love carrot sticks, peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, pasta, and lots of other yummy foods! If you’re like me, you probably enjoy many different kinds of food. That’s why we have different kinds of teeth!
We use our teeth to chew our food. Chewing breaks down food that would be too big to fit in our mouths or too hard to swallow whole. Imagine trying to swallow a whole pizza like a snake! Our teeth help us rip it into bite-sized pieces and make it smaller and mushier so we can swallow it easily.
Our teeth are amazing at turning all sorts of things into tasty meals. They have different shapes and jobs to help us eat all kinds of foods!
When you smile, you can see your front teeth really well. These are called incisors, and you have four on the top and four on the bottom. They help you take the first bite of food, like chomping into a sandwich or an apple.
Next, you have the longest and pointiest teeth called canines. You have four of them, two on the top and two on the bottom. These teeth are great for ripping and tearing food, like biting off a piece of a chewy bagel or sticky taffy.
Further back in your mouth, you have bigger, flatter teeth called premolars and molars. Premolars are a bit smaller than molars, but all of them have wide, bumpy surfaces. They’re perfect for grinding and crushing food, especially plant-based foods like celery.
We’re lucky to have different kinds of teeth because it means we can eat lots of different foods. Some animals have only one kind of tooth or more of one kind than another, depending on their diet.
Animals like elephants and deer eat mostly plants, so they have big, broad molars to break down thick plants. Squirrels, which also eat plants, have big incisors to chew through tough bark and seeds, along with molars to grind up the plant matter.
On the other hand, animals like tigers eat meat, so they have big, sharp canine teeth to catch and tear into their prey. Scientists can often tell what kind of food an animal eats by looking at the shape, size, and number of their teeth!
Luckily, we can eat all kinds of things: stretchy, chewy, soft, tough, slippery, and more. And that’s something to smile about! Thanks for joining us on SciShow Kids. Make sure to check back every week to learn more with Squeaks and me! See you next time!
