Have you ever had a moment where you
gaze around the room and notice that your students’ eyes are completely glazed
over in confusion or disengagement?
Suddenly you realize that they’ve all got brain freezes and you wonder,
‘what could I do to help them learn and find their ‘a-ha’ moments’? As a future educator, I would love to
share the top secret website that I use constantly to free my students’ minds
(and my own sometimes!) of those brain freezes.
Although it has become relatively
popular over the past year or so, I feel like any elementary educator should be
aware of BrainPop.com if they haven’t already. This website offers teachers the opportunity to show videos,
play virtual games, and plan activities on the user-friendly organized content
categories.
This is a pretty popular site among
teachers but I’ve found that it is extremely helpful in extending and
strengthening my lessons as a student teacher. For those of you who have never heard of it, I highly
suggest paying a visit to the signature ‘pop’ of the site and the lovable Moby. Moby is the digital robot that travels
with the students as they learn new concepts in most all content areas. Depending on the age level of your
students, the friend of Moby the robot changes so it becomes more relatable to
the students.
The BrainPop site is adaptable for
lower elementary classrooms and called BrainPop Jr. During my first student teaching placement in 1st
grade, I found that my students absolutely LOVED watching the videos and
playing the games. The silly song
they play in the beginning of each video clip is the perfect time for the
students to jump up and shake it out for 10 seconds. Once their minds are ready, they become fully engaged in the
content of the video (it never failed in my classroom!).
What’s great about BrainPop is it
not only is useful in an elementary classroom, but for any content area in
lower middle school. It works
perfectly for my current 5th graders in middle school! Although they aren’t into the ‘cutesy’
aspect of Moby and his friend, they still would much rather watch the BrainPop
video than listen to a lecture. I only
teach math to these students and have found that the BrainPop video tends to
clear up some fuzzy areas that students may have. The visual cues and demonstrations are extremely helpful for
the students to see what they are learning. I use BrainPop as more of a supplemental activity to
introduce the upcoming units for my middle schoolers.
After the video, students can answer the questions on the
activity for the video or the teacher can lead a discussion to assess their
understanding. Students apply
their knowledge of what they learned from the video into their class work and
it has definitely improved my teaching as well as their learning.
You can start a free trial of
BrainPop on their website or find the subscription that your local school
uses. There is plenty of free
stuff for educators to use without a subscription but it’s definitely worth it
to subscribe so you can watch the videos! Parents can also get on BrainPop at home if the teacher provides access (or they use the free subscription).
Hopefully you check it out so we
can get more brain ‘pops’ and less brain freezes!
Always,
Ms. Lyvers
Always,
Ms. Lyvers
*Here's the link! http://www.brainpop.com/