Posts on “ social studies ”

BrainPOP’s newest topic, ethics, provides an accessible, engaging storyline and a terrific entry point for students to frame and build skills focused on in the Common Core State Standards. Understanding the ethical dimension of reasoning will prepare students for critically evaluating a broad range of topics, from science and technology to history and literature. BrainPOP is making an strong effort to support implementation of the Common Core State Standards by creating new topic movies that consider changes in curriculum and performance based assessment. The Common Core standards for English Language Arts emphasize proficiency in making and evaluating arguments, problem-solving, and critical reasoning. Our ethics movie begins with age old questions – when you’re faced with a tough decision, how do you figure out what to do? What guidelines or examples do you use to make up your mind, and what happens when there’s more than one good way to act?  Tim and Moby offer some simple advice on what to do when you’re faced with tough choices about right and wrong, or good and bad. Students will consider some rules of thumb about ethical decision making, including ways to find a solution that does the most good while doing the least amount of harm. Ethics also primes students… Read the Rest»

March’s spotlights include  Women’s History and  The Law, so be sure to check out our featured movies and resources throughout the month! Ladies first… for this month’s first spotlight, Women’s History! We’ve packed this spotlight full of famous women to celebrate Women’s History Month. You’ll find movies on  Amelia Earhart, Frida Kahlo, Judy Blume, Marie Curie, Oprah Winfrey, and more. BrainPOP Jr. movies for this spotlight include Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks and Susan B. Anthony. Test your knowledge on one of our favorite famous women in history, Jane Goodall, or learn more about Feminism with our FYI feature. Spotlight: The Law includes content covering topics such as Bill of Rights, Copyright, Miranda Rights, Supreme Court, and much more. BrainPOP Jr. also has a collection of law-focused movies including Branches of Government and Local and State Government. This month’s spotlight is full of valuable resources and includes a collection of Law Games on GameUp by our friends at iCivics, as well as lessons plans for educators to use in the classroom.  

You’ve been asking for it, so it’s with great pride that we present to you our newest topic page, Iroquois!  In this Social Studies movie,  Annie and Moby introduce the culture, customs, traditions, and history of the Iroquois people. You’ll learn about the Six Nations (the Seneca, Cayuga, Onondaga, Oneida, Mohawk, and Tuscacora) and how these Native Americans lived long ago. See how their lives changed when the settlers began arriving in the 1600s. How do the Iroquois keep their traditions and culture alive? Also debuting this week: Probability! In this math movie, Annie and Moby find out how the concept of probability can be applied to everyday life. You’ll learn what it means for an event or outcome to be likely, unlikely, certain, and impossible. See how to calculate probability and show likelihood using numbers and fractions. Enjoy!

100 years ago today, February 4th 1913, Rosa Parks was born. Her courage helped spark the civil rights movement- and she remains a central figure in a defining moment of 20th century US history. To celebrate, today’s BrainPOP featured movie is about the Civil Rights Movement. This topic is a powerful entry point into the historical period. From movies on Dr. King and Malcolm X to Brown vs. Board of Education and the Bill of Rights –  BrainPOP content can help support understanding. For those educators working with students in early elementary, the topic page dedicated solely to Rosa Parks is a great entry point too. In addition to BrainPOP topic pages,  check out GameUp.  Games such as Argument Wars or Court Quest can help students better understand how the US judicial system both maintained unfair laws for so long, but also provided a mechanism for changing them.  Finally, in BrainPOP Educators, we have tons of support materials, including this lesson plan to help you consider Rosa Parks among other historically significant women. So celebrate today’s birthday and do something courageous.

A new lesson ideas resource has been added to BrainPOP Educators! In it, you’ll find five unique ways that BrainPOP can be used to help students learn about holidays all year long. These ideas go beyond simple celebration tips: they challenge students to think critically about what people around the world celebrate and why. In this lesson ideas page, you’ll find ideas for having students generate and answer their own FYI questions related to a particular holiday, find out how you can empower students to research and debunk holiday myths, and learn tips for talking about stereotypes or common misunderstandings surrounding a holiday or its culture of origin. You’ll also discover ideas for year-long holiday journals that students can use to reflect on essential questions related to celebrations. Finally, you’ll access ideas for helping students compare and contrast holidays from various seasons and explore their connection to seasonal occurrences, and explore how various cultures express their beliefs and way of thinking through holiday celebrations. We hope these are teaching resources you’ll be able to use to enhance students’ English Language Arts (ELA) and social studies instruction all throughout the year as various holidays and seasonal celebrations arise. Please feel free… Read the Rest»

Searching for some last minute lesson plans to help students understand Thanksgiving?  Look no further than BrainPOP Educators Thanksgiving lesson plan and teaching tools page for some useful teaching tips and tricks.  Your might also consider directing your students to American Indian Spotlight page for additional context about the holiday, especially the complicated and often misunderstood connections between American Indians and European Colonists. As we take a short break for the November holiday, we reflect on how thankful we are that you, our BrainPOP educators,  contribute to our robust teacher community.  See you after the break!

The presidential election is just around the corner and GameUp has quite a few games that will engage your students while learning about the election process.  With a special election edition of “Budget Hero,” students will form a better understanding of the budget impact of President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney’s policies, as well as those plans championed by their running mates.  Additionally, our friends at iCivics have created some excellent election-focused interactive games that you can find on GameUp.  “Win the White House” takes students on the campaign trail to explore both the primary and general elections and the Electoral College.  Once they’ve secured the president’s seat, a round of “Executive Command” will give them the opportunity to exercise their power and learn about the day-to-day obligations of our nation’s leader. Not sure of where to begin?  All of our GameUp games have related teacher resources to support the use of these games in the classroom.  And, don’t forget to check out our election spotlight for additional games and movies that are linked to the election.

There is no doubt that the country is buzzing in anticipation of this years hotly contested Presidential Election.  Help your students understand issues and consider possibilities by exploring BrainPOPs Election Spotlight page.  From Branches of Government to Voting and everything in between, BrainPOP is your go to source for demystifying the complexities of our electoral process.  Are you using BrainPOP election resources in a creative way, or want some ideas yourself?  Join our Election Discussion group and share with the community!

The presidential election is just around the corner and our upcoming featured movies are the perfect tools for teaching students about the election process.  From politics to presidents we’ve included movies that will make it possible for you to give students a firm understanding of how our nation’s president is elected.  It’s never too soon to start planning, so check out the list of upcoming FREE  featured movies below: 10/11 – Eleanor Roosevelt 10/13 – Political Beliefs 10/18 – Political Parties 10/20 – Branches of Government 10/22 – Democracy 10/24 – United Nations 10/26 – Political Party Origins 10/28 – Presidential Election 10/30 – John Adams

This past summer, we announced the addition of Budget Hero to the math and social studies sections of GameUp. Developed by the Woodrow Wilson Center, American Public Media and 360KID, Budget Hero challenges players to balance the federal budget. Throughout the game, players make policy changes that affect the budget deficit/surplus, the size of government as a percentage of GDP, the national debt as a percentage of GDP, and the projected year in which the budget “busts.”  While experimenting with budget cuts and government investments, students can identify budget priorities that they find interesting such as green initiatives, health and wellness, energy efficiency, and more. The response to Budget Hero has been overwhelming. The game developers report in a recent press release that the game has been played 1.3 million times through August 2012, with 75 percent of players playing a complete game! Additionally, almost 20,000 comments have been submitted to the developers through the game, with the majority of commenters saying it changed the way they think about the federal budget. Now there’s a special election edition of Budget Hero available to illuminate the budget impact of policies championed by President Barack Obama and Gov. Mitt Romney as well as those related to the impending… Read the Rest»