Make BrainPOP a new holiday season tradition: our Spotlight: Winter & Snow is entirely free through January 31st. Take a break from long lines and gift-wrapping to explore topics from Seasons, Winter Holidays, and Snowflakes to Avalanches, Glaciers, and Hibernation. K-3 topics include Hibernation, Winter, and Seasons.

But wait, there’s more! Visit Spotlight: Winter & Snow to personalize and send free BrainPOP e-cards. Choose from a selection of clever winter- and holiday-themed designs, then send as many as you’d like.

Also part of our Spotlight: Winter & Snow? Big savings! Through January 31st, save 20 percent when you purchase a Family, Classroom, or Homeschool subscription. Subscribe for your own household or give the gift of BrainPOP to someone you know and love.

BrainPOP is on the road at many conferences in December, and is pleased to announce a host of sessions presented by our users this month. This is a great opportunity for you to hear about the integration of BrainPOP by classroom teachers. If you are in the area, attend their session. You’ll also want to stop by the booth, catch a demo, and play the BrainPOP Challenge.

Our first stop is in Virginia for the VSTE conference, November 30-December 1. Adina Popa, from Loudon County and I will be presenting A Classroom without Walls: Using Web 2.0 tools to become 21st Century Global Citizens and Stock Market, Mortgages, and Credit Cards! Do YOUR Students Understand the Current Financial Crisis? Join us at each session to learn more about how BrainPOP is being used in Loudon County schools.

BrainPOP is also looking forward to the LACUE conference in Louisiana, December 2-4. Trish Sheridan, Louisiana BrainPOP user, will be presenting Making Our Lessons Pop with BrainPop. Natalie Lartigue, Louisiana educator from Belle Chasse Middle School, will also be presenting The Top Ten Ways to Use Brain Pop to Meet the Diverse Needs of All Learners. Stop by their sessions to learn more!

This month, BrainPOP is also headed to TETC in Nashville, December 2-3. Our BrainPOP Advisor and Instructional Coach with Knox County Schools, Teryl Magee, will be presenting Make Your Lessons POP! with BrainPOP.

The middle of the month, BrainPOP is headed to Minnesota for the TIES Conference, December 14-15. I’ll be presenting Do YOUR Student Understand the Current Financial Crisis? Spotlight on Financial Literacy.

Are you presenting at an upcoming conference like FETC? We’d love to hear what you’re covering. Send us a synopsis of your presentation and we’ll send you a complimentary Classroom subscription.

To help ring in the New Year, BrainPOP Educators will be giving away on-site professional development sessions to schools taking advantage of our free offerings for teachers.

Here’s how your school can win:

• If you haven’t done so already, check out BrainPOP Educators. You’ll find more than 650 free teacher resources including innovative lesson plans, video tutorials, graphic organizers, curriculum planners, shared best practices, and more. Like what’s there? Tell your colleagues. You can use our Invite a Friend tool.
• Make sure each teacher selects the right school in the registration form. Can’t find your school? Let us know.
• We’ll tally up all the teachers from your school who register on BrainPOP Educators between November 29^th and December 31st, 2009. The top three U.S. schools will each receive a half-day professional development session with one of us.
• To keep things fair, one prize will go to a small school (enrollment up to 300), one to a medium-sized school (enrollment 301 to 1000), and one to a large school (enrollment over 1000). In the case of a tie, we’ll randomly select one lucky winner.
• In January, we’ll contact the winners to arrange a mutually convenient date (in 2010) and to customize the training to your school’s needs. On the chosen date, a BrainPOP Educators trainer will spend up to four hours with you and your team. We’ll cover the trainer’s fee, travel and lodging, and any print materials used.

Wanna be a good sport? Share how you spread the word about BrainPOP Educators by posting comments below!

To gear up for the holidays, we have a Winter and Snow Spotlight that is chock full of fun topics and features fantastic promotions. We’re also featuring a Spotlight on Famous Scientists, along with lesson plans on Jane Goodall and George Washington Carver. Start planning your month, and don’t forget about our Curriculum Calendar for year round planning tips.

What have you got planned for December? Share how you get creative with BrainPOP around the holidays!

One of my fondest memories of special projects was this Thanksgiving Traditions lesson that I did with my 3rd and 4th graders. Take a look! It’s easily adaptable for any age, and involves a menu of activities that invite students to write a toast, share their family holiday traditions, create a menu, and more.

And if you haven’t already, explore our Spotlight on American Indians. We’re featuring a Trail of Tears lesson plan, and our Thanksgiving movie will be free through Sunday! It features 3 great Activity Pages (including short answers, a graphic organizer and vocabulary), and a fun, fact-filled FYI full of extension possibilities. For K-3 content, check out BrainPOP Jr.’s Thanksgiving movie.

Enjoy, and have a Happy Thanksgiving!

Now if that’s not a feel good photo, I don’t know what is! Carrie Crawford, Librarian at Northbridge International School of Cambodia in Phnom Penh, sent this in! I think it’s one of my favorite pictures ever.

The kids in the library use BrainPOP all the time for finding information on their Units of Inquiry, playing games, taking the quizzes, watching the movies or just having fun. I will have to tell you, it is almost like a reward for them - “Can we play BrainPOP?” Currently we only have 6 computers and it is always a mad rush to see who is going to get there first. Our internet connections in Cambodia sometimes leave a lot to be desired but most days we are able to log on and “play”.

Using BrainPOP internationally? Give us a sneak peek and let us know how you’re using it! And if any US BrainPOP users are looking for a class in Cambodia to be pen pals with, you can reach out to Carrie.

This totally made my day!

I want to thank you for the webinar last Wedneday. It was filled with helpful and useful information. I couldn’t wait to share with our librarian, Margaret Frick.

Today she used the quiz with few different grade levels. The tip of having the students show which answer they pick by moving to a different corner worked really well.

Looking forward to the next webinar.

Fred Delventhal
Instructional Technology Coordinator
Barrett Elementary School
Arlington, VA

Join us each Wednesday at 4pm for a free webinar! Today we’ll be sharing tips on how to Maximize Your District Subscription. Join us, or check out our upcoming webinars.

So fun to receive photos and notes like this from creative teachers! What a fantastic way to generate excitement among students AND teachers. Thanks for sharing, Dot!

I made the costume for Halloween and possibly for promoting Moby at Brain Pop workshops for teachers.  I am a Tech Assistant at a K-4 building.  We use BrainPop often.  The kids were very excited to see Moby in their school.  During morning announcements Moby was part of the NEWS team and made choir director motions while they sang “America”.

I spent $4.50 to buy the orange/brown shirt and a bucket for my head at Goodwill, used parts of old costumes for the sleeves and legs, and electrical tape for the stripes. The headphones were a broken pair from the lab.  I borrowed the boots from a teacher.

-Dot Gibney, K-4 Technology, Berks County, Pennsylvania

Got some BrainPOP-spiration to share? Post comments below!

Over 400 schools have already taken advantage of our offer to help ensure continuity of learning during the flu season by pre-registering for two weeks of free school-wide remote access to BrainPOP. Students who are not able to attend classes will have access to BrainPOP Jr. (K-3), BrainPOP, and BrainPOP Español for online learning during school-hours (7am – 5:30pm local time).

Has your class experienced a disruption in learning this season? Please comment below and share how you handled it.

Here’s what people have been saying about BrainPOP ESL:

I have Non-English Proficient learners and they LOVE brainpopesl. It starts them off with simple questions and statements commonly heard and used in the English language–ex. “How are you?” “Where are you?” “He is going to get there.” The kids (and me) like it because it’s entertaining, it’s simple and repetitive, and it has A LOT of different modes to learn the same information (which is great because kids can pick and choose which activities they enjoy and learn best from). I can always hear my little Vietnamese 4th grade student repeating the words in a strong voice on the “Hear It Say It.” She particularly likes this choice. I like the “Facts to Know” because it isolates a category of words (like pronouns), and then the words in a sentence, for context. The flashcards are great too for self checking. As the kids get progressively more proficient with the English language, they move on through the levels and build on their knowledge.

Mara Barandiaran, ESOL Teacher

Minor Elementary School, Gwinnett, GA

We love getting feedback. If you haven’t already done so, please check out brainpopesl.com and let us know what you and your students think of the site!