Posts on “ Lesson Plan ”

Want to see the food chain process come alive for your students? Introduce them to The Food Chain Game on BrainPOP’s GameUp! We’re proud to offer this resource in conjunction with Sheppard Software to help students identify roles that plants and animals play in various food chains during interactive game play. Students simply drag the parts of each food chain to their correct place, and when each chain is complete, it comes to life so students can watch it in action! Our lesson plan provides ideas for incorporating the game into your K-8 science instruction using the food chain movie topic page resources on both BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. Be sure to check out our other free science games, including Food Fight, the food webs two-player game of survival on the Serengeti.

BrainPOP and the JASON Project are proud to present Coaster Creator, a free online game in which students use their understanding of energy transfer to build a virtual roller coaster. The goal is to design a coaster that has enough kinetic energy to complete a full run, but still dissipate enough energy through friction to stop safely at the end of the course. Check out our lesson plan for ideas on how this game can be incorporated into your grades 6-12 physics instruction. The lesson includes pre-lab, lab, and post-lab worksheets available for free download. You can also visit the JASON Mission Center for a video demonstration and other games and resources.

BrainPOP Educators is spreading the love and you can now find some of our quality lesson plans on the HP Teacher Experience Exchange.  Much like BrainPOP Educators, the Teacher Experience Exchange is a free online community for teachers where they can interact with fellow educators, create and share lesson plans, enroll in courses, and more.   This month, the Exchange is highlighting STEM education and we’re honored that they have identified BrainPOP as a valuable resource for supporting STEM-based games and learning. Visit the Exchange to read what they’re saying about the benefits of using BrainPOP’s GameUp games in the classroom.  We’ve selected several of our best game-based lesson plans to share with the HP community and we’d like to encourage you to head on over and see what we’ve included.  From Flower Power to Executive Command, you’ll find lessons featuring our GameUp games in many curriculum areas.  

Ayiti is the latest addition to GameUp in conjunction with Global Kids! We’re really excited to share this unique game with you. Ayiti is a turn based, strategy game that challenges players to manage a family of five in rural Haiti, and keep them all healthy, educated and out of debt. At the start of the game, the player chooses a main goal for his/her family: achieve education, make money, stay healthy, or maintain happiness. During the course of the game, the player encounters unexpected events and must make many decisions that contribute to or detract from achieving the chosen goal. Ayiti corresponds with our movie topic pages on Budgets, Fighting Hunger, Money, and United Nations. It’s great for project-based learning because of the inter-disciplinary aspects. Use our Ayiti lesson plan to get ideas for elaborating on the science, social studies, math, and health topics covered in the game. After game play, there are lots of ways you can help students make a difference in the world. More details about each one are found on the Ayiti website (including the names and contact information for the individuals and organizations listed below). Write a letter to your Congressional or Senate Representatives to find out what they are doing… Read the Rest»

Summer is the perfect time for students to take charge of their own learning. Here are some ideas from our lesson plan bank for extending summer learning for students using BrainPOP: Challenge kids to become BrainPOP experts! They can identify their personal interests and connect to their world as they learn about things that are important to them. Encourage students to download the free BrainPOP Featured Movie app. They can watch a different movie every day! Have students blog about the books they read throughout the summer. Invite students to read different books by a favorite author and investigate the life and works of that author. Challenge your class to explore the games in Game Up. Can they “beat” any of the games? Ask students to report back in the fall about the strategies they used to win. Suggest that students document their learning using digital photography and share the images using web 2.0 tools. Encourage students to write their own BrainPOP script or even produce their own movie on a topic they’re interested in. Want even more ideas? Sign up for a special “Summer Fun with BrainPOP” webinar on June 20th. Also, we’d love to see your students’ summer learning projects using… Read the Rest»

There’s a new free science game available on BrainPOP’s GameUp! Landform Detectives is a game which functions as a “digital lab” in which students take a fascinating virtual trip through the processes of geology. Students will look at mountains, valleys, rivers, canyons, and glaciers in a whole new way as they solve the puzzle of how they got to be that way and how long it took to happen. Landform Detectives is a fun way to allow students to explore and compare the processes of weathering and erosion. They’ll analyze how weathering and erosion affects Earth’s changing face and how it forms the soil that supports life on Earth. Students will also examine landforms and identify the processes that may have created them. You can use this lesson at any time during your geology study. Younger students, English Language Learners, and others who need basic background knowledge on the topic may want to explore BrainPOP Jr.’s Landforms and/or Slow Land Changes movies. Use the variety of related BrainPOP topics to help develop student understanding of plate tectonics and the earth’s structure: Continents of the World, Earth, Earth’s Structure, Erosion, Geography Themes, Geologic Time, and Plate Tectonics. You can also tie in social studies connections by exploring the topics on… Read the Rest»

Need some extra inspiration? We’ve been getting lots of fantastic lesson plans from teachers who love BrainPOP! Here are some ways they’re integrating BrainPOP and BrainPOP Jr. resources into their instruction: Grades K-3 Standard and Non-Standard Measurement by Stefanie Sheridan,OH Solid Figures by Julia, NGU ,SC Online Safety with Kerpoof by Ellen Budish, FL Heart Adventure Challenge Course by Betty Ann Fish, SCH Academy, PA Underground Railroad Simulation by Mary Ledbetter, University of Texas Elementary Charter, TX Grades 3-5 Spam Alert! by Kate Dowdie, Technology Teacher, Mill Creek Elementary School, FL John Henry and Folk Music by Julia, NGU, SC Online Safety with Kerpoof by Ellen Budish, FL Heart Adventure Challenge Course by Betty Ann Fish, SCH Academy, PA Grades 6-8 Spam Alert! by Kate Dowdie, Technology Teacher, Mill Creek Elementary School, FL Avoid Clichés Like the Plague by Jackie Mercer, English Teacher, OH Imagery by Brian Duncan, Oldham County Middle School, KY Grades 9-12 Avoid Clichés Like the Plague by Jackie Mercer, English Teacher, OH Scopes Monkey Trial by Natalie Leonard, Independence High School,TN 1960′s Folk Music by Natalie Leonard, Independence High School,TN To Watch or Not to Watch, That is the Question by Myla McCoy, English Teacher, TN Browse or search through our entire database of lesson plans, or submit YOUR lesson plan to be included on the site!

As the end of the school year approaches, students need to review lots of material they’ve already learned. Why not use BrainPOP to help? In this new lesson plan, you’ll find ideas for helping students reflect on their progress and areas of strength and weakness, and review key skills and concepts. This lesson can be used in preparation for standardized testing or even unit tests in various subject areas. Preview the lesson and determine how you can adapt it for your class and differentiate for student needs. If your students have mobile devices, you may want to teach them in advance how to download the BrainPOP app. You may want to re-use this lesson plan throughout the school year for different subject area assessments. Encourage students to explore the movies and quizzes on their own, and check out topics that are relevant to their interests (including those topics that are not covered on a test.)    

There’s a new math and science game available on GameUp! In Refraction, students in grades 4-8 have the opportunity to explore light refraction and apply knowledge of fractional concepts during online gameplay. Refraction is an online puzzle game in which the player must partition lasers in order to power spaceships containing various animals who have gotten stuck in space. These animal spaceships all require different fractions of the lasers, and the player is given several pieces that split and bend the lasers to reach the animals and satisfy these requirements. These mechanics can be used to teach many important fraction concepts, such as equal partitioning, addition, multiplication, mixed numbers, improper fractions, and common denominators. Check out the demonstration video below to see the game in action: You can use BrainPOP’s Light, Fractions, and Refraction and Diffraction movies to help your students build background knowledge prior to game play. A complete lesson plan for the game is also available on BrainPOP, or visit The Center for Game Science to see more related resources.

  This is the homestretch: submissions for the lesson plan contest we’re sponsoring with Intel are due May 22nd! Implemented through We Are Teachers, the contest invites educators to submit lesson plans showcasing the use of our resources on mobile devices. Grand prizes include $200 (put it to use at ISTE, perhaps?!) plus a Flip cam you can use to film your creative ideas in action. We’ll also feature the winners right here on BrainPOP Educators. To help get your creative juices flowing, We Are Teachers has put together a few tips for pairing digital resources with mobile devices. Show a clip to introduce a lesson. Have partners watch together on a Slate or Netbook. Challenge them to tackle any related activities together, and ask them to brainstorm questions they have about what they’ve just seen. Then, use their questions to jumpstart your class discussion. Invite fast finishers to tune in. Allow fast finishers to don headphones and watch relevant movies on a Smartphone or Slate. Use video to differentiate your lessons. Video and movies are great tools for reaching a broad range of learners. Show a movie that ties in to what you’re teaching. Students who are still struggling with the concepts… Read the Rest»