December 11, 2012
Wednesday, December 12th at 4:00 PM ET- What’s New on BrainPOP ESL Our award-winning English language learning resource continues to grow and thrive! Bev Fine, BrainPOP ESL’s Editorial and Outreach Director, introduces its newest units and tools. She’ll share her favorite tips and tricks for navigating this powerful resource, and you’ll see why BrainPOP ESL has everything you need to address ESL/ELL student needs.
October 30, 2012
Our thoughts are with all of you affected by Hurricane Sandy – may our return to normalcy be safe and quick. We know how many teachers and students are out of school and house-bound this stormy week, and we’d like to help make life at least a bit easier for you. All BrainPOP resources – including BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., BrainPOP Español, and BrainPOP ESL – will be completely FREE through the weekend. Help explain the catastrophic weather with topics like Hurricanes, Floods, Natural Disasters, and, on BrainPOP Jr., Fast Land Changes. Explore any other topic the kids might be interested in. Or take the titles on GameUp for a spin (our online games portal is always free). We’re here for you! As you may have read on Twitter, our headquarters in New York are without power as of October 30th, and our servers are down. We’re doing our best to assist and respond to our subscribers remotely, but we hope you’ll be patient with us over the next few days.
July 23, 2012
The NABE conference is the largest gathering of ELL educators in the country and there’s no better place to spread the word about our award-winning BrainPOP ESL. The 42nd annual conference will be held in Orlando, FL from February 7-9, 2013 and will host more than 2,000 attendees and include internationally renowned keynote and featured speakers. With more than 200 featured and concurrent sessions it’s the perfect conference to expand your own professional development AND share your teaching expertise with others. If you’re a BrainPOP ESL superstar who lives in the Orlando area and has some tips and tricks to share, submit a proposal to present at the NABE conference. Need some help? No problem! Just send us an email at BrainPOP Educators and we’ll work together to create the best proposal possible. All proposals must be submitted but August 15th, 2012 so don’t wait too long to get started!
June 25, 2012
BrainPOP has some exciting news! We are thrilled to announce that we’ve released the “Hear It, Say It” recording tool on BrainPOP ESL. Students will now have the opportunity to hear a phrase or word spoken by Ben, repeat it while recording their own voice, and then listen to themselves speaking the English language. This amazing tool will enhance the support activities that accompany the BrainPOP ESL lessons by making the experience truly interactive. Our team has been hard at work to provide you with this newest feature so, let’s hear it for BrainPOP ESL!
October 17, 2011
At BrainPOP we were thrilled to hear that our friend Anne Scatchell, an ELL and Bilingual Resource Teacher from Glenn Westlake Middle School in Illinois, had her article published in the fall edition of the ITBE (Illinois Teachers of Speakers of Other Languages and Bilingual Education) Newsletter! As a self professed “huge fan of all the BrainPOP products,” Anne highlights the benefits of BrainPOP’s highly visual content for English language learners to help with key concepts and vocabulary. In addition, Anne discusses BrainPOP ESL, which offers a carefully delivered scope and sequence of English language learning in all four language domains. Anne’s students watch the movies and flock to the “Words to Know” section for vocabulary development and the “Facts to Know” and “Know More” sections to demystify complex grammar concepts. And of course, they love the games! By providing an explicit sequence, “At a Glance,” BrainPOP ESL allows students to move through the curriculum at their own pace, but also allows more advanced students to identify what they need to learn, pick the lesson directly, and differentiate for themselves. Anne reminds us that people love BrainPOP for the clear, concise and humorous visual explanations, and now ELL teachers can get in on… Read the Rest»
June 2, 2011
Chris Carter’s saga with BrainPOP ESL in Germany continues with week 7… Day Thirty The exercises in BrainPOP ESL Level 2 require more reading and more fill in the blank activities. We have to help Moby accomplish a goal by choosing the correct word to complete a sentence. Since not all my first graders can read English with fluency quite yet, so I find myself reading for them. First, I read the main sentence then the four to ten possible answers. I think three is more than enough. So much for me being able to sneak into the background for a little covert observation! I had been drifting to the back of the room to watch my class while they watched Ben and Moby. A teacher sure can learn a lot about their class from the back of the room! Student P was not very happy about the last time I did that. She ended up with a time-out for not being able to keep her hands to herself. Day Thirty Two A visitor from BrainPOP ESL came to our school today. I gave him a tour of the school. It must have looked like we do nothing but BrainPOP! (I… Read the Rest»
May 24, 2011
BrainPOP ESL: Basics and Beyond Wednesday, May 25, 2011 4:30 PM EST Duration: 1 Hour Get acquainted with the award-winning BrainPOP ESL, the newest addition to our suite of resources. Bev Fine takes you through the eight interactive features that support each movie and reinforce the lessons through practice in all four language skills. She’ll also take a look at teacher support material like lesson plans and activities that build differentiated and higher order thinking skills. RSVP: http://bpeslbasics.eventbrite.com/
May 22, 2011
Chris Carter’s saga with BrainPOP ESL in Germany continues with week 6… Day Twenty Five What a day! This morning started out with surprise treats brought in from one of my student’s parents to celebrate a birthday. Everyone filled their bellies with chocolate and other sweets, resulting in 20 kids on a serious sugar high at 9:00 in the morning. How did BrainPOP Jr. fit into today’s routine? Well, it provided me with about 15 minutes of calm in the classroom. This turned out to be just enough time for me to recompose and change my plans to better fit their manic energy. Day Twenty Six The sugar high seems to have continued, as my students were just as boisterous and giggly as yesterday. Again, BrainPOP Jr. gave me a period of calm while the learning continued. Of course I don’t want to use video, even interactive video, to sedate my students but I also don’t want to understate the peaceful beauty of a quiet and fully focused class. I’m glad Moby had my back. Day Twenty Seven Ah, finally a semi-normal day. We were on a roll, so decided to stick with BrainPOP Jr. again this morning. This time… Read the Rest»
May 21, 2011
Before the school year comes to a close, check out new and exciting content on BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr. & BrainPOP ESL! The Latest on BrainPOP: ♦ Queen Elizabeth II ♦ Bicycle Saftey The Latest on BrainPOP Jr.: ♦ Helen Keller ♦ Long A ♦ Multiplying by 0 or 1 ♦ Percussion Instruments ♦ Verbs New on BrainPOP ESL: Level 2, Unit 5 is now live on BrainPOP ESL! The five new lessons cover comparative adjectives and adverbs; superlatives; adjectives that end in -ed and -ing; word order; and prepositions of time.
April 17, 2011
Chris Carter’s saga with BrainPOP ESL in Germany continues with week 5… Day Twenty There’s a bug going around the school, maybe all of Berlin! I was sick on Monday, so we will return to BrainPOP ESL tomorrow. Day Twenty One We are back in action with BrainPOP ESL, we are at Level 1, 3.4 Any Cookies?. The Warm Up! activity was more difficult than the You Can Do It! activity. The Play It! game was a challenge too. Not only did it require more reading, but it involved more critical thinking, which I like. I read the questions out loud and the students tried to choose the correct answer. I’ve noticed that the activities are repeated at different levels, so the next time we do these, they should be easier. Day Twenty Two We watched the Thanksgiving movie on BrainPOP Jr. This movie was easier to follow than the Rainforests movie we watched last week. We played the game afterwards. It was called Moby’s Match. It’s a memory game that reviewed Thanksgiving words from the movie. Everyone could play because Annie read the words aloud when the students clicked on them. We had to play twice so that everyone… Read the Rest»
