Brain Poppin Goodness

Meet Annie, Moby and Tim the three characters from BrainPop. 

What is BrainPop you ask? 

Well, it is just about one of the niftiest things out there!

From their website: "BrainPOP creates animated, curricular content that engages students, supports educators, and bolsters achievement. They have Animated Science, Health, Technology, Math, Social Studies, Arts & Music and English movies, quizzes, activity pages and school homework help for K-12 kids."
BrainPop comes in the following flavors, BrainPop, BrainPop Jr., BrainPop ESL and BrainPop Spanish and you can use them all for FREE but if you want all the nifty extras you have to pay for a subscription. The program is a bit pricy but if you get sponsors or talk to your local PTA or PTO they might just spring for it. There is also a plethora of money back programs that can help you get that additional money. Box Tops for Education is one we use but more on that in another post!

BrainPop and BrainPop Jr. are the only two that I consistently use in my classroom.

So, how do I use BrainPop in the classroom?

Here is just one example of how I use it in my classroom. At the beginning of each year we teach internet safety. This includes personal safety as well as the issues of cyber bullying. BrainPop has a great video on the topic. I bring the kids in, give them a brief run down of what we are studying then I show them the video. In the video they restate what the episode is about in the form of a question or scenario.

Once it is over we do some talking about the vocabulary that was highlighted in the video. (Notice the word 'cyberbully' printed in white within a black oval?)

 

If I decide that I need a grade for that day I will use their handy, dandy quizzes. I can either print them out or just have the kids take the quiz and call me over to record the grade.

Brain Pop has been one of the best investments that our school has made. I suggest everyone check it out! : )