Posts on “ Spotlights ”

The beginning of August means the beginning of the school year is just around the corner and our Back to School spotlight has just want you need to get your students ready for a successful school year.  We’ve included topics such as Online Safety, Bullying, Washing Hands, Getting Help, and Friends so you can build a classroom community and support the optimum learning environment.  Give students a peek at some of the activities and skills they’ll cover throughout the school year with our Reading Skills, Research, Book Report, and Making Observations movies.  We’ve even included some lesson plans and graphic organizers to include in your back-to-school plans! August’s Nature of the Universe spotlight is out of this world!  Satisfy students’ curiosity of outer space with our Black Holes, Galaxies, and Constellations movies.  We’ve also included our very own BrainPOP created game, Chronopticon, as part of this spotlight so students can take an interactive approach to learning about the Earth-Moon-Sun system.  Since we’re lucky enough to experience two full moons this month (August 2nd and 31st), don’t forget to check out our Moon Phases movie to celebrate the occasion.

Last week, President Obama announced plans for a national corps group to recognize and reward leading teachers in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) areas.  Recognizing the importance for America’s future within the global workforce Obama said, “we need to make sure our children are getting the best education possible.  Teachers matter, and great teachers deserve our support.” Furthermore many argue that educating students in these fields is important for longterm financial and economic interests of the country as well. Some noteworthy points in the announcement?  The goal is to prepare over 100,000 additional STEM teachers over the next decade.  The federal government is willing to compensate leaders in the initiative and, to do this,  has requested 1 billion dollars in the 2013 budget!  They are dedicating $100 million of the current budget to this initiative immediately. To read more about the announcement, check out the official press release. To view BrainPOP STEM resources, be sure to check out our STEM spotlight page with topics galore to help students build understanding.  In addition,  utilize the new Science and Math related games featured on GameUp, as another useful resource that students love.

School’s out for summer, but that doesn’t mean students can’t squeeze in some summer learning with our spotlights. July’s spotlight, Red, White, and Blue, includes movies and activities to help us celebrate our country’s independence.  Students can explore United States history through our Declaration of Independence, Causes of the American Revolution, and Thirteen Colonies movies.  And, don’t forget our very first president, George Washington!  Students can test their U.S. knowledge with the accompanying interactive quizzes and activities.  This month’s other spotlight, Animals, gives students the opportunity to learn about both domestic and wild animals.  From dogs and cats to penguins and dolphins, students can become experts on the animals they find most interesting. We also have a number of spotlights that aren’t month specific and are perfect for students to enjoy all summer long.  Why not learn about the authors who wrote the books they’re reading?  Students can extend their summer reading assignments with our Books & Authors spotlight.  We’ve included movies about classic and talented authors like Charles Dickens, Roald Dahl, J.R.R. Tolkien, and more.  Additionally, check out the Famous Scientists spotlight where students can become scientists themselves.  The Albert Einstein, Benjamin Franklin, and Charles Darwin movies offer hands-on… Read the Rest»

  Things get a little weird this month on BrainPOP with June’s spotlight: Weird Science.  We’ve included everything from Bruises to Bats to Boogers.  Yuck!  Explore those strange carnivorous plants and follow up by playing Crazy Plant Shop, available on GameUp.  You’ll find content on creatures from under the sea, including giant squid and cnidarians, as well as a great extension activity to learn about the effects of an oil spill on the ocean.  We’ve even included some topics that are literally out of this world such as black holes and aliens, which has a related game on GameUp. K-3 topics include Fossils, Camouflage, and Ocean Habitats. June’s additional spotlight on Grammar includes topics that cover grammar, punctuation, and fun with words.  Help students put the brakes on those run-on sentences and polish their writing with the correct use of hyphens and dashes, semicolons and capitalization.  Encourage them to add some variety to their work with our Antonyms, Synonyms, and Homonyms movie while getting to the root of their words with the Etymology movie.  The BrainPOP Jr. spotlight offers Possessive Nouns, Tenses, Capital and Lowercase, Types of Sentences, and much more.    

We’re spotlighting Sports & Fitness and Practical Math this month, so be sure to check out the collection of movies and other resources featured throughout all of May.   The arrival of warmer weather moves kids outdoors, so why not cover some topics they can take outside with them?  Our Soccer, Football, and Fitness movies can get kids up and moving while our Bicycle Safety movie is a perfect refresher for students before they hit the road.  With Baseball season in full swing, our Jackie Robinson movie is a valuable resource for teaching about the history of the sport.  Students often ask, “Why do we need to learn this?”  Answer their question with the featured topics and resources in the Practical Math spotlight.  From Comparing Prices to Estimating, we’ve included math concepts that students can apply to everyday life outside of the classroom.  

Gasps of excitement filled the BrainPOP offices this morning as the Space Shuttle (atop a 747) flew past our windows! Everyone was standing by the windows, mouths wide, with the cameras in hand! In celebration of the shuttle’s new home in New York, today we’re providing free access to our Space Flight movie.  Want more free content about space exploration?  Check out our Space Spotlight or build a solar system on GameUp!

April is a month of showers, flowers and season changing powers: with all this transition comes student questions!  Help them find the answers by checking out BrainPOP’s “Earth Awareness” spotlight page.  From glaciers to global warming, we have curated a wide variety of relevant topics that can help explain some pretty tricky concepts! We also feature one of our newest GameUp games, “Food Fight” and information about an exciting contest with an opportunity to win a trip to the movies!  Teach about energy efficiency (while saving your own) by exploring our easy to implement lesson plans.  No matter what you do, let us know what we can do to help you, and share your ideas with other BrainPOP Educators in our user forums!

BrainPOP is proud to be a Sponsoring Partner for the 2011 Global Education Conference, held entirely online from November 14-18. With over 200 sessions presented from all over the world, the conference seeks to present ideas, examples, and projects related to connecting educators and classrooms with a strong emphasis on promoting global awareness, fostering global competency, and inspiring action towards solving real–world problems. Through this event, our friends, organizers Steve Hargadon and Lucy Gray hope that attendees will challenge themselves and others to become more active citizens of the world. As a sponsoring partner, BrainPOP is especially excited to support esteemed educational philosopher Dr. Howard Gardner’s Keynote presentation on Wednesday November 16th at 2:00PM. Dr Gardner will be interviewed about globalization, new digital media and it’s  impact on education.  It will be a compelling hour. BrainPOP is a leader in delivery of online movies with interactive features in the USA, but you may not have known that BrainPOP content is constantly updated and translated into differentl languages.  It’s available in Spanish, French, Hebrew and even Mandarin!  Global education is part of our identity! The conference is entirely free.  You can learn more about all sessions and excitement at http://globaleducation.ning.com/  

Beth Quinn is Research Director at Filament Games. Prior to joining Filament’s team, Dr. Quinn was a professor of sociology, specializing in the Sociology of Law and qualitative methods. She brings almost two decades of teaching experience and a passionfor innovative approaches to teaching and research to her work at Filament. Dr. Quinn received her Ph.D. and M.A. from the University of California-Irvine.  Today, as BrainPOP announces our STEM game design event,  Dr. Quinn asks for your guidance on future offerings from Filament Games. What topic plagues you year after year? The topic that students consistently have trouble understanding, find excruciatingly boring, or simply can’t relate to. You try different methods, but every year it’s the same old struggle. You can’t drop it because it’s foundational to the field or it’s mandated by state standards. Anyone who has ever taught knows these frustrations. I like to call them “Pedagogical Pain Points.”   I work with a talented team at Filament to create educational video games that help teachers turn Pedagogical Pain Points into Pedagogical Victories. Filament Games is working to develop games that function as core teaching tools for topics that are foundational to your field or are consistently difficult for your… Read the Rest»

Superstar educator Kippy Cooper, a science teacher from Draper Intermediate School in Wylie TX, uses BrainPOP to help her students develop the ability to ask good questions.  She says, “Part of my classroom traditions include my classes thinking of questions for BrainPOP. They have all year to think of one question.” At the end of the year, Kippy prints our free graphic organizers from BPEducators and has the students draft questions and design shirts for Tim.  Today we share some of  her students’ hard work with you.  Click the small thumbnail to see larger photographs! If you have creative and important ideas like Kippy’s, share them with us at BrainPOP Educators!  You never know, we could even feature you on our community blog!