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Join the Beta Test for Storyboard!

1 day ago
5 min read
Four colorful digital screens display educational content on Patriots and Loyalists, using BrainPOP's new beta feature, Storyboards. Bright blue and yellow background with decorative stars.

Update: The Storyboard beta is growing! We've added 10 new Storyboards for Texas classrooms on BrainPOP Jr. Check out the Texas collection.


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. We're thrilled to launch our latest learning activity, Storyboard*, now in beta! Storyboard takes that same narrative power of our movies and delivers it through text and lightly animated illustrations.


Think of Storyboard as a close-up. Where a movie gives students the big picture, a Storyboard zooms in on one person, event, or process, in that fun, surprising way you expect from BrainPOP. It's a great way to build background knowledge before a lesson or give students context before they read a core text.


Take Storyboard (Beta) for a Test Drive


We launched the beta this spring with 30 Storyboards—15 on BrainPOP Jr. (K-3) and 15 on BrainPOP (3-8). They cover a wide range of grade-appropriate, curriculum-aligned topics.

BrainPOP Jr. (K-3) Storyboards

BrainPOP 3-8 Storyboards

Bees

Why are bees so busy? Learn about these important pollinators.

African Myths (Anansi Brings Stories to the World)

An Ashanti tale starring the lovable trickster spider

Daniel Boone

Man, myth, or legend? Learn about this rugged explorer of the West.

Bartholomé de las Casas

A 16th-century priest challenged the Spanish Empire to reckon with the morality of conquest.

Boston Tea Party

Learn about the act of protest that helped launch a revolution.

Chinese Myths (Pangu Splits the World)

A Han Dynasty tale of the creation of the world

Constellations

Connect the dots in the sky!

El Dorado

A glittering rumor drove early European explorers to obsession, danger, and even death.

Day and Night

How does Earth's movement around the Sun cause day and night?

Freedom Riders

Their bus rides across the South put segregation on trial.

Declaration of Independence

Explore the founding document of the United States.

The Gilded Age

Industrialization created a chasm between rich and poor—and a shiny new fad at the dining table.

Fables

What are fables and what can we learn from them?

Hurricane Katrina

How a 2005 natural disaster caused devastation and heartbreak on the Gulf Coast

Fairy Tales

Once upon a time . . . we learned about the elements of a fairy tale.

Lorraine Hansberry

Her family's fight for housing turned a young Black writer into a Broadway trailblazer.

Farm to Table: Juice

How do oranges get turned into juice? Learn about the process.

The Negro Leagues

The story of one player's defiance in the days of baseball's color line

Farm to Table: Milk

Follow milk as it goes from a farm to a factory to our kitchen tables.

Native American Myths (How Coyote Stole Fire)

A pourquoi tale from the Yurok, Karuk, and Shoshone people

Louisiana Purchase

Find out how the United States doubled in size and expanded west.


Norse Myths (The Beginning of the World)

A Viking tale of giants, gods, and the Nine Realms

William Penn

See how Penn's ideas of governance and freedom are the foundation of our government today.

Oliver Sacks

The doctor whose puzzling patients inspired a revival of the medical case study

Sheep to Sweater: Wool

Nice sweater! Where'd you get it? Learn how wool gets spun into a sweater.

The Padrão Real

In the Age of Exploration, this map held the greatest prize of all: knowledge.

Tall Tales

From Paul Bunyon to John Henry, explore these giant tales.

Patriots and Loyalists

The Revolution forced ordinary people to choose sides—and turned a farmer into a master spy.

Telescopes

How has the telescope changed over hundreds of years?

Sojourner Truth

She couldn't read or write, but her speeches and her life story electrified 19th century America.


Myths

Explore myths and how they make meaning of the world around us.



Every Storyboard includes embedded multiple-choice questions that check for understanding and is also accompanied by WordPlay or Vocab Builder to support the language used in the text.


New as of October 2026! Texas Storyboards on BrainPOP Jr.


Texas students are asked to know a lot of specific people, places, and events, from the heroes of the Revolution to the state's own symbols and landforms. So we made 10 new Storyboards just for them:


  • The Battle of the Alamo

  • José Antonio Navarro

  • Juan Seguín

  • Road to the Texas Revolution

  • Sam Houston

  • Stephen F. Austin

  • Texas Declaration of Independence

  • Texas Folktales

  • Texas Landforms

  • Texas Symbols


Each one is aligned to the current Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) and written with the proposed 2030 revisions in mind. That makes it easy to match a Storyboard to the exact names and ideas in your standards.


We Want Your Feedback!


We aren't just building this for teachers; we're building it with teachers. We launched Storyboard in Beta so we can gather feedback to inform our next steps. Whether you've tried one of our original 30 Storyboards or one from the new Texas collection, we want to hear how it went.


As you bring Storyboard into your classroom, we're curious:


  • How do your learners feel about them? Is the complexity of text and the illustration hitting the mark and resonating, or could the activity be improved?

  • How are you implementing them? Are they a front-of-class engagement tool or an independent activity? Are you using them to kick off or extend a lesson?

  • Do they help you build background effectively? We designed these to be relevant and fast, but we want to know what's not working.

  • What should we tell stories about next? Which people, events, or ideas does your curriculum ask for that you'd love to see as a Storyboard?


Will There Still Be More Movies?


We want to be 100000000% clear: we are still making new movies! They are the core of who we are.


Starting with Storyboards, we are exploring other formats that can tell important stories in new ways. Please consider providing feedback through our survey. We can't wait to hear how these work for you and your students. Let's build together!


*Storyboards include optional AI reading scaffolds that provide simplified sentences and definitions for any word or sentence. All AI functionality in BrainPOP products are configurable and can be turned off to meet local needs and policies.

Annie Choi is a Product Strategy Director at BrainPOP, perhaps best known as Annie from BrainPOP Jr. She is passionate about puns and developing content that feeds curiosity. Her superpower is making hard things fun. To no one's surprise, her favorite character is Annie.

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