Inside Bright Bites

First and foremost, Bright Bites has been designed to make learning fun! The resources centre around an interactive CD-ROM featuring our Bright Bites’ hero Charlie! Children can direct Charlie around his house visiting different rooms each of which contains information on a specific topic.

In Charlie’s bathroom, children can take a closer look at the mouth and learn about incisors, canines, pre-molars and molars, watch video clips instructing them how to brush their teeth and play a game placing the right teeth in the right part of Charlie’s mouth.

In Charlie’s kitchen, children learn about different food groups and the importance of healthy eating, vegetarian and vegan diets and the effect of sugary snacks on their teeth. They also get the chance to play a fantastic game, where children get to shoot bad foods before they enter Charlie’s mouth, allowing healthy foods to enter unhindered!

In his garden, Charlie introduces children to his pets, allowing them to learn about their different diets and investigate their mouths. Children can also learn about wild animals and play a game feeding appropriate foods to carnivores, herbivores and omnivores.

Children also have the opportunity to investigate a dental practice and learn about different dental equipment with a view to making the environment more familiar and positive.

Finally, children can also learn about “Dafine”, Charlie’s pen pal from Africa who takes the children on a tour of her home, village and school. She gives them an insight into her diet and oral hygiene routine, encouraging cultural understanding and discussion.

On completion of the programme, children can test their knowledge in a quiz to measure learning outcomes and can print off a personalised certificate.

The school pack contains 12 activity sheets with links to the CD-ROM. These provide fun tasks, activities and quizzes designed to reinforce the learning objectives of the curriculum and perfect for use in the classroom or structured oral health education learning in dental practices.

Rachel Chapman, a teaching assistant from East Surrey who used Bright Bites during the pilot process said:- “Bright Bites will meet the needs of all school staff who teach KS2.  Its great to have everything in one pack with most of the preparation done for you.  Our children have all enjoyed using it and have  improved their knowledge.”

A slimmed down CD only version was also developed for dental practices and the general public.