BrainPOP Jr. provides a growing library of educational materials to help students learn, discover, play, and engage in various literacy based activities. BrainPOP's movies cover various topics and subject areas. Teachers can choose from existing movies or create a BrainPOP-style movie from scratch.
In this post, the focus is on BrainPOP Jr. and these are the main points I covered"
- What is BrainPOP Jr.?
- How to create Quizzes?
- What features does BrainPOP provide?
- What is BrainPOP Educators?
- Are BrainPOP Jr. movies CC aligned?
- Is BrainPOP Jr. free?
1- What is BrainPOP Jr.?
BrainPOP Jr. is a learning platform that offers educational resources for children in kindergarten through third grade. Similar to Funbrain, BrainPOP's resources include animated movies, learning games, interactive quizzes, lesson ideas, lesson plans, and several other educational activities. Resources in BrainPOP Jr. cover over 250 curricular topics in Science, Math, Reading, Writing, Social Studies, Health, among others.
Each topic is explained through animated movies, learning games, concept maps, and interactive quizzes. Topics also include several other educational activities and materials including lessons ideas, lesson plans, and more.
"Draw About It, Write About It, and Talk About It on BrainPOP Jr. offer different modes of creative response for every type of learner."
2- How to create quizzes on BrainPOP?
There are two quiz types on BrainPOP: Review quiz and Graded quiz. "The Review quiz only proceeds to the next question when the correct answer has been selected. The Graded quiz accepts a student’s first answer and reveals the score at the end of the quiz."
If you have an individual teacher account you will be able to create your own quizzes using the Quiz Mixer. You have the option to choose from quizzes created by fellow teachers and educators or you can create your own from scratch. You can also use a mixture of your questions and questions imported from existing quizzes.
3- What features does BrainPOP provide?
BrainPOP provides a number of interesting features that renders learning fun, interactive, and engaging. Some of these features include:
A- Creative Coding
Creative Coding includes activities and coding projects prepared in partnership with Scratch and Vidcode and are meant to introduce students to the basics of coding. Students are not required to have prior coding knowledge to work on these projects.
Some of the coding projects included are: creating games, coding math problems, creating stories, designing museums about a BrainPOP topic, creating interactive comics, making memes using videos and graphics, and many more.
Creative Coding is only available to 'district and school subscribers on individual teacher and student accounts.'
B- Make-a-Movie
Make-a-Movie feature allows teachers and students to create their own BrainPOP-style movies. Students can create their own drawings or use BrainPOP's library to select images to use in their movies. They can change backgrounds, record and add their narration and transitions, and when they are done they can share the final product with teachers for evaluation.
"Make-a-Movie cultivates planning, organizing, writing, collaborating, and analyzing skills. Students take ownership of their learning as they engage with curricular content on a deeper level and demonstrate their comprehension of a BrainPOP topic."
C- Make-a-Map
Make-a-Map is a concept mapping tool from BrainPOP which allows students to create concept maps to demonstrate their understanding and enhance their understanding of key relations and concepts in the movie. Students can create a new concept map or choose from the pre-designed templates including: Spider, Vocabulary, Problem/Solution, Cycle Relationship, Structure, Story Analysis, Storyboard,and Compare and Contrast.
D- Belly Up
Belly Up is a feature that display comics relevant to the topic of the movie. You can use these comics in various educational activities including to activate students prior knowledge, practice literacy skills such as reading and writing, check students comprehension and more. You can also create your own Belly Up comic using BrainPOP educators graphic organizer.
E- Word Play
Word Play is "a feature that prompts students to write, draw and create a short script based on 5 topic specific vocabulary words." You can use Word Play to enhance students vocabulary learning. For instance, you can use it to introduce difficult terms in the movie, introduce new terms, or to pre-teach key vocabulary terms. Students have the choice to write, draw or act words out.
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| Image credit: jr.BrainPOP.com |
4- What is BrainPOP Educators?
BrainPOP Educators features a wide variety of educational resources and teaching tips to help teachers and parents tap into the full educational power of BrainPOP. There are lesson plans, professional development resources, academic standards, essential skills, and more.
In the BrainPOP Jr. section, you will find lessons plans, lesson ideas, interactive features and more. To browse topic directory in BrainPOP Jr. Select a subject then a Movie Topic. The subject areas covered include:
A-Arts and Technology:
Lessons featured in this section cover topics such as : Digital Etiquette, Computational Thinking, Computer Programming, Engineering and Design Process, Elements of Art, Taking Photos, Musical Instruments, Internet Safety, Collage, Blogs, Parts of a Computer, and many more.
B- Health
Lessons in this section cover a number of topics including: Allergies, Anger, Bones, Bullying, Asthma, Caring for Pets, Chickenpox, Caring for Teeth, Conflict Resolution, Colds and Flu, Digestive System, Eating Right, Divorce, Emotions, Empathy, and more.
C- Math
Lesson in Math section cover topics such as: Adding and Subtracting, Area, Addition and Subtraction Fact Families, Adding with Regrouping, Basic Probability, Arrays, Choosing an Operation, Combinations, Comparing Numbers, Combinations, Counting on, Doubles, Elapsed Time, Equivalent Fractions, Inches and Feet, Line Graphs, and more.
D- Reading and Writing
Lessons in Reading and Writing cover topics like: Adjectives and Adverbs, Book Reports, Capital and Lowercase, Cause and Effect, Character, Choosing a Book, Commas with Clauses, Commas with Adjectives and Lists, Compound Words, Concept Maps, Contractions, Homonyms, Facts and Opinions, Nouns, Make Predictions, Poems, Reading Nonfiction, Prefixes, Possessive Nouns, Sending a Letter, and more.
E- Science
Lessons in the Science section cover the following topics:Arctic Habitats, Desert, Classifying Animals, Changing States of Matter, Earth, Fall, Energy Sources, Fish, Fast and Changes, Food Chain, Forests, Fossils, Frogs, Grasslands, Gravity, Heat, Insects, Hibernation, Mammals, Migration, Moon, Natural Resources, and more.
F-Social Studies
Lessons in social studies cover the following topics: Ancient China, Ancient Rome, Ancient Egypt, Biography, Branches of Government, Continents and Oceans, Goods and Services, Halloween, Homes, Kindergarten, Lunar New Year, Maya Civilisation, President, Thanksgiving, Statue of Liberty, U.S. Symbols, Winter Holidays, and more.
5- Are BrainPOP Jr. movies CC aligned?
BrainPOP Jr. movies are aligned to Common Core including CCSS, NGSS and U.S. state standards. Use the standards tool in BrainPOP Jr. to search for topics by standard. You can also search for standards by grade and subject for the specific countries such as : Canada, England, Scotland, and Australia.
6- Is BrainPOP Jr. Free?
All BrainPOP products, that is, BrainPOP (Grades 3-8+), BrainPOP Jr. (Grades K-3), BrainPOP ELL (All ages), and BrainPOP Español and BrainPOP Français (Grades 3-8+), all have subscription plans. There are plans for Teachers, Schools, Districts, Family and Homeschool plans. Depending on which plan you choose, there are options for both monthly and annual recurring payments.
