BrainPOP Blog

We've curated a month's worth of timely movies for June, whether you have a few more lessons to fill, a summer school session to run, or just a classroom full of curious kids who still want to know how things work.

BrainPOP has always been the part of the lesson that makes the rest of it easier. This year's updates make that even more true—with more ways for students to practice and still get the support they need, more ways for teachers to see what's landing in real time, and more ways to take the curiosity sparked by one five-minute movie and the millions of aha moments that follow.

Windows and mirrors in the classroom help every student see themselves in history. Discover how teaching AANHPI history opens a fuller story of America.

What makes BrainPOP's educational animation work? Go behind the scenes—from script to screen—and see how every creative choice supports learning.

BrainPOP movies start with a letter, from a student, to Tim and Moby—or Cassie and Moby, or Rita and Moby, or whoever is with Moby that day. They ask big, complex questions, like “How come I can’t ever get to the end of the rainbow?” or “Why do germs make me sick?” or “What are taxes? Why do we have them?”, and are signed by a kid or class. Ever wonder why every BrainPOP movie starts with a letter?

From Star Wars Day and AAPI Heritage Month to World Bee Day and the anniversary of the New York Public Library, we’ve curated weekly movie recommendations to accompany your May lesson planning.

Meet the first four releases in BrainPOP’s newest movie collection: Folktales, Adventure Stories, Realistic Fiction, and Historical Fiction. Arriving just in time for National Reading Month and International Children’s Book Day, these movies are essential tools all year round. Whether you use them as a genre-study bell-ringer, a book hook, a writing warmup, or a social studies intro, your students will walk away making deep, lasting connections to the text.

BrainPOP's mission is to help students understand the world around them and within them. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now part of that world—and part of their classrooms. That's why BrainPOP creates AI-enabled learning opportunities and teaching tools with intention: designed to equip students and teachers to understand, teach, and use AI with confidence.

Big moments raise big questions. In classrooms, those questions may sound simple at first, but they often reflect something deeper. Students are trying to understand the world they're growing up in, and sometimes that world is changing fast. Since its founding in 1999, BrainPOP has stood alongside educators in these moments, providing clarity when confusion is high and steady guidance when the ground feels like it's moving.

In the faculty lounge, the conversation usually centers on one thing: AI fluency. We talk about how kids are using these tools, how “AI-fluent” they seem to be, and how we can possibly keep up with their proficiency. But there’s a massive gap between operating a chatbot and actually understanding what’s happening under the hood. At BrainPOP, we believe that before students use AI, they should understand AI.

At BrainPOP, we believe every student is a natural-born explorer. Whether they are diving into the tiny world of states of matter or navigating the complexities of map skills, that spark of curiosity is what drives real learning. But sometimes, even the most curious explorers hit a roadblock—a tricky sentence or a word they’ve never seen before. That’s where BrainPOP’s embedded AI reading scaffolds come in.

You are preparing for an upcoming lesson and thinking about your multilingual learners. You want them fully included in the work ahead. You want them engaging with the same rich content as their peers. But you also know how quickly support can become visible to other students in a classroom. So what does differentiation look like when it truly empowers students? In many classrooms, it means support that is built directly into the learning experience.

We're testing something new at BrainPOP and we need educators like you to help us get it right. As you know, we here at BrainPOP love a good narrative. Our movies use storytelling to capture students' attention and break down complex topics, from telescopes to the Boston Tea Party. We're thrilled to launch our latest learning activity, Storyboard, now in beta!

Discover how Bloomfield School District uses BrainPOP to fuel student engagement and provide teachers with a flexible, trusted instructional partner for K-8.

Discover three suggestions for incorporating history-making women into your classroom during Women's History Month — and beyond!

Every brain works differently. Learn how BrainPOP uses UDL principles to foster learner agency and provide multiple pathways for students to engage, represent, and express their knowledge in the classroom.

Move beyond rote test prep. Discover instructional strategies and ready-to-use BrainPOP resources that build student confidence, time-management skills, and assessment readiness.

Resources to support educators as they bring Black history in their classroom during Black History Month–and all year long.

In 2025, we added 21 new movies across BrainPOP 3-8 and BrainPOP Jr. Moby, Tim, Annie, and friends solved mysteries in the woods using celestial mechanics, turned indoor cycling into decimal bootcamp, and proved that even corpse flowers make perfect sense once you understand adaptation. Read on below for what’s new, what’s updated, and what's coming next.

Discover how BrainPOP’s Connected Texts build reading comprehension and content knowledge across subjects. Each short nonfiction passage includes built-in supports, real-time insights, and multiple reading levels—helping every student grow as a confident, independent reader.