Posts on “ lesson plans ”

Starting March 18th, 2013 BrainPOP Educators is getting a new look! We’ve simplified our homepage to provide you with the most useful resources and information – from our favorite “featured resources” to direct access to lesson plans and the standards alignment tools.  We hope you find the new look simple and appealing! Our goal is to help you find all the information and resources you need quickly and easily. If you’d like to share your thoughts about all our resources, you can! We’ve now given you the ability to comment on topic pages, webinars, lesson plans and more.  Let the community know what you think! Over the next few months you’ll be seeing more changes, especially with site navigation and search. We’ll be continuously improving our resources too, so visit often to find new features and learn about all the developments at BrainPOP!

You may have noticed, over the past few days, that the BrainPOP topic pages have a shiny new button called “lesson plans and teaching tools.”  Click this button for a whole new entry point to BrainPOP Educators providing topic specific lesson plans, graphic organizers, games, quizzes and more. Our goal is to make a more friendly BrainPOP Educators experience, and reduce the amount of searching you need to do.   Also, we’re adding a social layer!  Once you click through to a learning resource, you can leave a comment for how you’re using it! If you prefer the former BrainPOP Educators experience, you can just click the banner accross the top and return to the same familiar homepage. These new “lesson plans and teaching tools” pages are the first of many changes for BrainPOP Educators.  We’re making the site more user friendly, just like BrainPOP, but we’d love to hear what you think, and how we could improve.  Please don’t hesitate to provide feedback in the BrainPOP community.  

The growing interest in mobile learning has BrainPOP on the go!  Have you been using the BrainPOP mobile app with your students?  Whether it’s on a field trip or in the classroom, we want to hear about the exciting ways you’ve been able to integrate it into your daily lessons. We are looking for high quality lesson plans that meaningfully incorporate the use of either the iOS or Chrome BrainPOP app.  If you haven’t yet used the app, we encourage you to explore it with your class and determine how it could fit into your curriculum.  Once you’ve had some time to play, submit a lesson plan to share your ideas.  The best lesson plans will be featured on our blog and we’ll send those lesson plan authors a free BrainPOP t-shirt!

Guest Blogger Laura Candler was a teacher in Fayetteville, North Carolina for over 30 years. She has presented educational workshops to teachers around the country for over 12 years. She’s the author of 10 books for teachers, and her Teaching Resources website is jam packed with ideas galore! We are thrilled to have her contributing her timely ideas to BrainPOP Educators.  Be sure to click and check out her newly minted MLK lesson plan with a free 13 page teaching packet, just in time for the holiday. Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by Laura Candler, Teaching Resources, www.lauracandler.com Many students across America will take time this week to reflect on the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and his impact on the civil rights movement. Yet as a former teacher, I know how difficult it can be find appropriate resources for elementary students on this topic. How do we teach our students about the incredible challenges Dr. King faced and the social injustices of that time period? So a few days ago when I discovered the BrainPOP video, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., I knew I had found an amazing resource! In this four-minute video, the animated characters Tim… Read the Rest»

Have you checked out our new GameUp offerings? Game-based learning adds a new way to engage students, and we’re so excited about the expanding collection of educational games here at BrainPOP! BrainPOP Educators is looking for high quality lesson plans that include the use of BrainPOP and GameUp to help students learn in meaningful ways. We encourage you to play the full range of games we offer and determine how they fit into your curriculum. Try them out with your students, and then submit a lesson plan sharing your ideas! We’ll be selecting three GameUp lesson plans submitted during the months of September and October to highlight in an upcoming blog post. We’ll also send each of those three submitters a free BrainPOP t-shirt! What are you waiting for? It’s time to GameUp!

GameUp: Teaching Civics Through Games Wednesday, August 31, 2011 4:30 PM EST Duration: 1 Hour Are you struggling to find a way to teach students how to engage with their communities and with the government responsibly? Through GameUp, we’re proud to feature games by iCivics that do just that. Through games like Branches of Power and Argument Wars, students learn to navigate through a system to achieve a goal. Join our partners at iCivics and learn how these motivating games emphasize process, not abstract facts and figures, and truly require very little prep from busy teachers!    

Hi, BrainPOPpers! My name is Angela Watson, and I’m the Educational Editor for BrainPOP Jr. Part of my role is to oversee the development of lesson plans on BrainPOP Educators. Are you already humming the tune of School’s Out ? We’re excited to share a new summer and beyond opportunity for BrainPOP Educators. Starting in June, we’re going to award BrainPOP Educator t-shirts to the top three lesson plan submissions every month! For those of you eager to get your hands on a BrainPOP t-shirt, here is your golden opportunity! We’re looking for lessons that highlight creative uses of any BrainPOP resource, so please share your ideas for incorporating BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., or BrainPOP ESL into high-quality instruction and classroom activities. You can check out our existing lesson plans to get an idea of how other educators are using BrainPOP and see the type of lessons we’re looking for. We value your time and appreciate your expertise. We made the submission form quick and easy. Click here to submit your lesson plan.  Angela will contact you via email if your lesson plan is accepted and published, and let you know if you’re one of our 3 monthly t-shirt winners! That’s not… Read the Rest»

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/

Are you searching for fun, creative ways to use BrainPOP with your students during these final weeks of school?  Have you already started the planning process for next year?  We hopefully have just what you’re looking for; check out our new lesson plans listed below.  The lessons and activities are adaptable for a wide variety of grade levels and always feature our BrainPOP movies and interactive resources! Cause and Effect: Natural Disasters *Bonus: can be used with today’s Featured Movie, Floods Stress Management Cartoons Student-Created Review Activities on the Parts of Speech Plagiarism, Copyright, and Citing Sources Documenting Learning with Digital Photography Using the Scientific Method in Real-World Problems Solar System Mobiles Metric or Customary? Rounding or Exact Answer? Geometry Q&A That’s not all, we have five award-winning lesson plans on Earth Awareness submitted by members of the BrainPOP Educators community! To view our lesson plans, you’ll need to create a free BrainPOP Educators account. The process takes only a few seconds, and will provide you with access to over 130 lessons, plus free webinars, printable graphic organizers, professional development, and more! We invite you to submit your own lesson plans to share how YOU use BrainPOP, BrainPOP Jr., and… Read the Rest»

Engaging by Design: How to Clear the Clutter & Resonate With Students Wednesday, May 4, 2011 4:30 PM EST Duration: 1 Hour Using an LCD projector or interactive whiteboard to teach? Do your students seem bored by your LCD projector or interactive whiteboard lessons? Join Dave Kootman, a BrainPOP Educator and IWB guru, as he shares simple, effective techniques to engage your students. These quick and powerful tricks –touching on design elements, research, and multiple presentation media – are sure to liven up your presentations and increase your effectiveness. RSVP: http://engagingbydesign.eventbrite.com/