Brain Pop

Brain Pop creates animated, educational movies for the classroom. Teachers can purchase one of multiple subscription types or just use the “free stuff.” Like anything, you get more options as a subscriber, but even the free videos are great. The best part about this app is that you can download a different version depending on what age group you teach: Brain Pop Jr. (K-3), Brain Pop, Brain Pop Español, and Brain Pop ESL are all available. As a future K-8 teacher, I know these videos will be great transition activities or “brain breaks.”

Here’s how it works:

A variety of subjects are available: arts and music, science, social studies, engineering and technology, English, math, and health. Each subject is then divided into more specific categories; for example, if I were to click on “science” I would then be able to choose from topics such as earth systems, matter and chemistry, energy, ecology and behavior, etc. After each video there are activities: some of the free ones include order of events, short essay questions, graphic organizers, and a vocabulary list with space for definitions. These activities could be used while the student watched the video, a “ticket out the door,” etc. There is also a Q&A tab that could be used as a prompt for classroom discussions or submitted to the teacher as a formative assessment. Subscribers gain access to quizzes. By using the Mixer tool, instructors can adjust the quiz difficulty to students' ability levels and use the results as a formative or summative assessment.

Brain Pop can be downloaded as an app on all major platforms or through www.brainpop.com.