The lesson plan, then the notes for every slide. Print on A4 and take the second sheet to the board.

The Whole Bite Club · Year 3 and Year 4 · Lesson 3 · After the visit

Acid attacks

After the visit, students go under the surface of the F-2 story. Germs on a tooth turn sugar into acid, the acid pulls minerals out of the enamel, saliva puts them back, and this happens every single time we eat or drink. From that comes the idea the whole band turns on: how often matters, not only how much. This is the lesson that changes a lunchbox without ever ranking a food.

Learning intention

In this lesson, we will find out what an acid attack is, and why how often we eat matters as much as how much.

Success criteria

I will know I am successful when I can:

I can explain, in order, how sugar becomes acid and acid softens a tooth.
I can say what saliva does between meals.
I can mark the acid attacks on two days that have the same amount of sugar, and say which day was harder on the teeth.

Guiding questions

Five lollies at once, or one lolly every hour for five hours. Which is harder on your teeth?
What is your mouth doing between meals?
If acid arrives every time we eat, why does anyone still have teeth?

Vocabulary

plaque · acid · saliva · mineral · snack

Australian Curriculum

AC9HP4P10, AC9HP4P09

Support

Give the four steps as pre-cut picture cards to sequence before any writing. Day A's attacks pre-marked as a worked example. Sentence starter: "Day B was harder because ……".

Challenge

Design two whole school days with identical total sugar but different timing, swap with a partner, and argue which mouth is worse off. Add a third day where water follows each sweet thing and predict what changes.

EAL/D

Every step carried by a picture before any word. Pre-teach the five terms with images. Sentence frames on the worksheet and the exit ticket. "Attack" is a metaphor and needs saying plainly once: it means the acid is working on the tooth, nothing is fighting.

Disability

Timelines available at A3 with larger boxes. Ticking circles can be replaced by placing counters. The game has a select-then-place keyboard path and 64 px targets, and nothing animates under `prefers-reduced-motion`.

Exit ticket

What does saliva do after we eat something sugary?
Jo has four lollies at once. Sam has one lolly every hour for four hours. Whose teeth have the harder day, and why?

Assessment of learning

The two marked timelines are a clean work sample: the count shows directly whether the student has grasped that each eating occasion is one attack.

Rubric line

Explains why how often we eat affects teeth.

Working towards

marks attacks on one day and counts them

At standard

marks both days, counts correctly, and names the day with more attacks as the harder one

Above

does that and explains it by saliva needing time to repair between attacks

Inclusion notes

No child's actual eating is discussed, collected or displayed, and neither timeline belongs to anyone in the room. Both days are a fictional person's.
Say once, out loud, that nothing on the sheet is a food anyone should stop eating. A child who is fasting is not asked to describe their eating times.

Resources

Years 3 – 6 Supporting Resource Pack
Printed Two days, same sugar timeline sheet, A4 landscape and A3
The four-step sequence as pre-cut picture cards, one set per support group
Counters, as an alternative to ticking the attack circles
Class chart or whiteboard for the hook split

Worksheets to print

Two days, same sugar · /downloads/3-4/two-days-same-sugar.pdf
Lesson 3: Acid attacks (PowerPoint) · /downloads/decks/3-4/03-acid-attacks-slides.pptx

Acid attacks · handout for the whiteboard

Teacher notes, slide by slide

The number beside each note is the slide it belongs to, counting from the first.

1.TitleAcid attacks
Today we find out what an acid attack is, and why how often we eat matters as much as how much.
2.Success criteriaWe will know we can do it when:
The third is collected.
3.QuestionFive lollies at once, or one lolly every hour for five hours. Which is harder on your teeth?
Hands up for each. Record the split on the chart. Do not answer it yet; the game answers it.
4.PictureThe film on your teeth
The film is the point, not the germs sitting in it.
5.SlideThe film on your teeth
Never describe germs as dirt or as a sign of an unclean child. Everyone has oral bacteria.
6.PictureSugar in, acid out
The picture carries this, not the words.
7.SlideSugar in, acid out
Four steps, in order, modelled once slowly. The picture carries this, not the words.
8.SlideEvery time — except water
This is the sentence of the lesson. Say it, then say it again. Water is the exception because it carries nothing the germs can use and is not acidic itself, which is also why the water card in the game lights no marker. Naming the exception here is what stops the slide and the game teaching two rules.
9.SlideSpit is the repair crew
Give the number now: the attack lasts about 20 minutes. You will be asked within about ninety seconds of the hook, and until 7 September 2026 the answer had no number in it. Two sources sit behind the figure. healthdirect Australia, Dental erosion: "acid causes your tooth enamel to become softer for about 20 to 30 minutes, until your saliva helps wash it away". The clinicians ruled the single figure a class hears, 20 minutes, on 7 September 2026. The older answer still works alongside it: long enough that a second lolly usually arrives before the repair is finished. Spit puts minerals back into enamel that has gone soft. It cannot grow back enamel that has been lost, which is what lesson 1 meant.
10.GameSugar Clock
Play twice. First anywhere, then to light the fewest markers. The child discovers the rule by playing; do not tell them first.
11.Picture6 teaspoons
Count the spoons together before the number goes up.
12.Slide6 teaspoons
The class hears one word, and it is sugar: the clinicians ruled it on 7 September 2026, in their words "Sugar is the key word. Don't worry about added or free. Sugar is sugar." Keep the ADA's own noun for yourself, because the attribution has to be exact: its figure is for free sugar, which counts juice and honey, and its factsheet says added sugars while its policy says free sugar. Say the second bullet either way, because the next lesson's data set puts orange juice at 7 teaspoons and a child who thinks the guide is only about what gets stirred in concludes juice does not count. Attribute it to the ADA, not to WHO; WHO publishes no separate child figure.
13.SlideTwo things that help today
Both are actions, not rules about foods. Nothing is forbidden and no food is named as bad.
14.VideoHow a cavity forms
The activity below is the lesson. A link from Oral Health Home is welcome and the slide takes one when it arrives, but nothing here is waiting on it: this is a full two-minute activity, not a re-run. Four students take one step each — germs, sugar, acid, spit — and stand in a line at the front holding the four picture cards from the support set. The class narrates the sequence twice, once in order and once with the cards deliberately swapped so the class has to correct them.
15.WorksheetTwo days, same sugar
Mark an attack in every box with food in it. Day A has 3, Day B has 6. Both days have the same sugar, and the sheet says so.
16.Exit ticketWhat does saliva do after we eat something sugary?
The two questions from the lesson plan. The application question is the hook, asked again now the class can answer it.
17.RecapWhat we found out
Go back to slide 3's split and settle it. Then ask what each student will change about when they eat, not what.

Where this comes from

Oral Health Home's answers to the platform's decisions, September 2026 · Oral Health Home. Held by Oral Health Home; not published online. Five things only the clinicians can say: that in the schools the club visits about 40 to 45 per cent of children have already had tooth decay and in some it is closer to half; that the acid attack is taught as about 20 minutes, the single figure inside the published range; that at a school visit the remineralising varnish is painted on every child whose family said yes; that thirteen teaspoons of sugar in a bottle is not for children; and, until Queensland Health's own page is opened by a named person, that South East Queensland's tap water is treated and many regional towns' is not.
Policy Statement 2.2.2 - Diet and Nutrition · Australian Dental Association · Opened 5 September 2026. That drinks and foods high in sugar or acid are a sometimes choice for children, and that sugar and acid together are the harder pair on teeth. https://ada.org.au/policy-statement-2-2-2-diet-nutrition
Dental erosion · Better Health Channel · Opened 5 September 2026. That acid alone wears enamel away with no germs involved, which is why a sugar-free soft drink is still hard on teeth, and the advice to wait about half an hour after something acidic before brushing. https://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/health/conditionsandtreatments/dental-erosion
Get Sugar Savvy: Sugar and its effect on teeth · Australian Dental Association · Opened 5 September 2026 · PDF. The acid attack itself, step by step: germs feed on sugar, make acid, and the acid softens enamel. It is the mechanism both bands are built on. The file is the association's own factsheet, ADA-branded and carrying its copyright line, but the copy is hosted on DPV Health's server rather than the association's; the repair half of the cycle is Better Health Channel's, cited beside this wherever a lesson teaches it. https://www.dpvhealth.org.au/app/uploads/2020/08/ADA_OHP_Factsheet_sugar_and_its_effects.pdf
Healthy diet · World Health Organization · Opened 5 September 2026. The free-sugars ceiling as a share of what a person eats in a day, which is where the teaspoon arithmetic in the drinks lessons starts. It publishes no separate figure for children, which is why the six teaspoons are attributed to the dental association instead. https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/healthy-diet
Dental erosion · healthdirect Australia · Opened 5 September 2026. Two things. How long enamel stays soft after acid — the page puts it at 20 to 30 minutes, and the class is taught the 20 the clinicians ruled on. And which drinks are acidic enough to wear enamel away, sugar-free soft drinks among them, with the food acids a student reads off a label listed in its own sentence further up the same page: "foods with additives — such as citric acid, sodium citrate or phosphoric acid". It is the national service saying independently what the acidity paper measured. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/dental-erosion