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Tags: BrainPOP UK, delicious, spotlights, starship brainpop, web links
Last week saw the Queen addressing the General Assembly of the United Nations for the first time in more than half a century…but in other news, it’s the first time EVER she’s appeared on BrainPOP UK!
More tea, your Majesty?
In our latest UK specific movie, Tim and Moby describe the many intricacies of being The Queen.
You’ll discover what it means to be Head of State; the difference between queen and government; how many countries are in the Commonwealth; and the conflicting views of the Republicans versus the Monarchists. You’ll also learn why the Queen visits all those overseas countries; why she frequently hosts garden parties; and how she honours those who have been of service to the country. And, just how long has she been in the job?
We’ve made it our featured movie this week, so grab yourself a cuppa and sit down for an audience with The Queen.
Tags: BrainPOP UK, Exclusive UK movies, new movies, the queen
The thigh bone’s connected to the knee bone…but this Spotlight isn’t just about bones, it’s about the intricate systems inside the human body: Spotlight on BodyPOPping.
Moby's insides are very different to yours!
We’ve collected our body “systems” topics together so, after you’ve watched them all, you’ll know exactly how your inside’s work and how the systems link together to keep you going day in, day out.
Topics for the Spotlight on BodyPOPping include:
Here are a few activities to reinforce the learning in the Body POPping movies:
1. Scientist Moby (7-14 year olds)
When Adam and Joe blogged about paper characters of themselves last year, we jumped at the chance to get some paper Moby templates made. We contacted Sally Grosart who kindly designed some fantastic paper templates for us. And now we’ve found an opportunity to share them with you.
Fancy Moby as a lab partner? We would too! Make this scientist Moby to help you get your Science head on for this Spotlight:
Click to start download
What you need:
What to do:
Download Scientist Moby then print off on a blank sheet of A4 paper or card (use scrap paper or the side of a cereal box cut down to size if you can!).
Using your scissors, carefully cut along the “CUT” lines. You might need an adult to help you with the slits for the arms.
Once you’ve cut out all of the different parts, take your time to make the folds and glue where instructed. It might be easier to make Moby’s head first, it’s the easier part, so that way you get used to the gluing and folding. Don’t worry if you make a mistake, you can just print off another copy.
Hopefully, you should end up with something a little like this…
Send us a photo of your completed Scientist Moby and we’ll send you a special Einstein Moby badge (and a few bonus badges too). Email your photo to info@brainpop.co.uk and we’ll post it on Flickr and Facebook. You can see more of Sally’s work here.
There are more paper template Moby’s coming in future Spotlights so watch this space!
2. Taking your pulse (10-14 year olds)
You might need help from a teacher or parent for this activity but, once you find your pulse, you’ll be able to find it time and again.
Place your index and middle finger of your writing hand firmly on the inside wrist of your non-writing hand. Your fingers should be two fingers space away from the heel of your wrist.
If you can’t find your pulse there, try placing your index and middle finger on the underside of your jaw, on your throat, instead.
There are more detailed instructions here.
What’s my heart rate?
Once you’ve found your pulse, count how many beats it makes in 6 seconds on the clock. Then, multiply this number by 10.
This figure tells you how many beats your heart makes in a minute.
Learn how the human heart works by watching the movie - Heart.
3. Heart rate experiment (11-14 year olds)
This is a fun activity to help you see how exercise affects your heart and respiratory system.
What you need:
What do do:
Working in pairs, you and your partner should take note of your pulse on this sheet to record your results. Record this as your resting heart rate.
Now for the fun bit…jump up and down, hop, skip or run for 1 minute! It’s even more fun if you can do this to music.
When your minute’s up, take your pulse again and have your partner record it on the worksheet.
Now it’s your partner’s turn to exercise for a minute. Record your partner’s pulse rate on the worksheet.
After a minute’s rest, take your pulse one more time and record on the worksheet.
Learn why it’s good that your pulse rate increases through exercise by watching the Fitness movie.
Tags: activities, body activities, body facts, bodypopping, BrainPOP UK, human body, science, spotlights
Can you blame it all on the hormones? Yes you can! Tim & Moby help with a few growing pains: Spotlight on Growing Pains.
Topics in the Growing Pains Spotlight include:
A here are a few fun things to ease those Growing Pains..
1. Competition time!
You could be in with a chance to win a £100 gift voucher for Health Edco.
Who are Health Edco?
We met Health Edco for the first time at the Health & Wellbeing Exhibition back in November and were really impressed with the range of cool (and helpful!) PSHE classroom tools they offered. We were particularly affected by these Drunk & Dangerous Glasses (it was impossible to walk in a straight line with these on) and seeing just how much tar builds up in a smoker’s lungs in one year (Tobacco Health Package) – not pleasant!
So take 5 minutes out of your day for some Growing Pains Word Search fun and you and your students could be enjoying some fantastic Health Edco resources in the new school term:
Click here to download.
Competition guidelines:
Send by…
Post: BrainPOP UK, 1st Floor Barclay House, 242-254 Banbury Road, Oxford OX2 7BY
Fax: 01865 55 77 66
Email: info@brainpop.co.uk
For competition terms and conditions see here: http://www.brainpop.co.uk/support/competition_terms_and_conditions/
2. Match ‘em up
A fun Match the Movie activity! See if you can tell which letter question kicks off which movie!
Click here to download.
Hopefully it’s easy enough but we’ve provided an example to get you started. Hint: watching the Spotlights movies should help you along nicely.
3. Dear Tim & Moby
At BrainPOP UK we appreciate how difficult growing up can be – after all, we’ve all done it (well, most of us!) – and adolescence can be such a confusing time. So it’s good that Tim & Moby pride themselves on answering tricky questions.
If you have a question you’d like answered, here’s the letter template for you to download: Dear Tim & Moby letter.
Fill it out, send to us and we’ll make sure Tim & Moby get back to you.
Think of Tim & Moby as your own personal Growing Pains Agony Uncle and, er… Agony Robot?
You can also ask Tim & Moby a question here.
4. What’s the worst thing about growing up?
After you’ve enjoyed our Growing Pains movies, done fantastically well in the quizzes, found out some interesting facts from our Adulthood FYI, and completed the activities in this POPSpot post, take a second to vote in our Growing Pains poll and see how the results are shaping up:
Tags: activities, BrainPOP UK, growing pains, Health Edco, PSHE, spotlight
Visit the Spotlight on Growing Pains.
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PLEASE NOTE: We don’t have control over any external websites you may choose to visit from this blog/widget. You follow links external to BrainPOP UK at your own risk.
Tags: BrainPOP UK, delicious, growing pains, PSHE, spotlights
You may have noticed that Tim & Moby tend to get themselves into all sorts of scrapes in the name of learning so we’ve decided it would be worthwhile to collect a list together of what we consider the funniest Tim & Moby moments so far.
Do you agree with our list? Do you have any favourite Tim & Moby moments we’ve missed?
1. Jazzbot scatting in the Jazz movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/uk/arts/artanddesignstyles/jazz/
Just improvise, man!
2. Fish talks to Tim in the Sleep movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/psheandcitizenship/pshehealthandconditions/sleep/
Sweet dreams
3. Moby jumps into Tim’s arms – he gets a little fright in the Light movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/lightandsound/light/
Banish the darkness!
4. Moby’s robot choir in the Vocals movie. What a racket!
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/lightandsound/vocals/
Sing out loud, sing out strong
5. It turns out Moby’s magnetic in our Compass movie. Watch out for heavy flying objects!
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/forcesandtheireffects/compass/
Which way is north?
6. Drooling Tim. Moby tries his hand at painting in the Colour movie…and Tim is his hapless victim:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/lightandsound/colour/
"Zzzzzz"
7. Moby jumps in some crispy autumn leaves in a movie about…Autumn Leaves!
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/lifeprocessesanimalsandplants/autumnleaves/
Get out the rake!
8. Moby wants to cook Ewan…watch the Fish movie to discover his fate:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/science/lifeprocessesanimalsandplants/fish/
What do you mean they don't have fingers?
9. We hear Moby speak! It’s all words, words, words in our Etymology movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/english/knowledgeaboutlanguage/etymology/
Words words words
10. Moby meets a Welsh mouse in the Types of Writing movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/english/readingandwriting/typesofwriting/
I'm going to be famous
11. Tim & Moby get all “Einstein”. See the wigs in action in the Albert Einstein movie:
http://www.brainpop.co.uk/humanities/historyfamouspeople/alberteinstein/
Clever man, Einstein
We couldn’t resist an eleventh – there were so many to choose from. We’ve always felt Tim & Moby turn it up to 11.
Other gems from our brand new movies include, Balance, Electric Circuits and Compounds and Mixtures.
Tags: BrainPOP UK, comedy, comedy moments, fun, laughs, Tim & Moby, top 10
There are going to be lots of people writing up their experiences of #TMHants, held last night in Southhampton.
Ian Addison and Gideon Williams did an incredible job of pulling this event together – but it was really the attendees that made it so special.
Probably the most interesting thing about last night was that for 95% of the attendees this was their first Teachmeet! And they loved it! There was loads of passion, excitement and genuine gasps as inspiration was shared.
So rather than going on about the presentations, I want to share some of the random conversations that I had – for a mix of selfish and more altruistic reasons! Sorry not to include everything but this is only to give a flavour of the power of the ‘unconference’ model.
I finally got to meet Charlie Dean – who was sporting a very rare VIB t-shirt – and who was very kind about BrainPOP UK. It was great to hear how much her class enjoy the movies. More than that, she introduced me to some of the teachers at her school, who were also great. For example…
I had a great talk with the deputy head at her school about the power of teachmeets, the problems with ‘normal’ CPD, and the barriers of ICT. I did not get her name but she was super keen to come along to TMFishbowl on the 17th June, partly because of the success of #TMHants .
After watching Jon Audain’s fantastic presentations, I caught up with him and Emma Goto, and we swapped iPhone apps, early years sites and realised that we were all Tiggers!
Finally, Kristian Still came to find me at the end of the event to say some very nice things about BrainPOP UK – a perfect end to the night. Kristian said (and I’m paraphrasing here – based on my rosy memory of his words!) that he was hugely impressed with BrainPOP UK’s commitment to Teachmeets, to having authentic conversations with teachers and kids, and that we had brought a great resource to schools. I almost fell over with gratitude, because that it exactly what we set out to do, and here was a fantastic practitioner in a normal school reflecting that back to us.
We then went on to discuss about how his Digital Leaders, kids trained to be expert in edtech, might work with BrainPOP UK to share some learning…another great unexpected outcome from this fantastic event!
Finally, as I drove home up the A34, I kept replaying the evening in my mind and found it rich in ideas, practical activities and relationships with people that I want to continue.
Tired as I was (and am), I went to sleep (once I was in my bed, not while driving) H A P P Y.
Nice.
Tags: #TMHants, BrainPOP UK, teachmeet, VIBs
This month’s Spotlight is all about Tim, Moby and the BrainPOP UK team going on a rescue mission so we looked far and wide for some green inspiration. And, thanks to Ian Pittman (@IPittman) from The Alice Smith School, Kuala Lumpur, we found it!
It began with a tweet…
The Alice Smith School is a keen BrainPOPpping school in Malaysia. So we jumped at the chance to talk to the Kids who choose to go green.
We’re glad to say that Gabriel and the Kids for Earth team were very happy to answer a few questions from us and spread the word about their great efforts in the name of saving the planet. If you can believe it, there are only 6 of them, aged 11 to 15.
Kids For Earth’s vision is to inspire children and teenagers to become active eco citizens for the future of our world. A simple presentation about the life of Billy the plastic bag has led to the Kids for Earth team presenting their message to hundreds of children in local schools, a constantly updated blog, and even national media coverage. They’ve certainly inspired us and we hope you enjoy meeting them!
What inspired you in the first place? Was it a lesson on looking after the environment that made you think, “we have to do something!”?
When I was smaller, we lived in Europe so we regularly visited our grandpa, in France. He is a very outdoorsy person and he has his own garden, where he plants vegetables and fruits. Every time we visited our grandparents, we therefore spent a lot of time outside, with our grandpa lecturing us on how organic and home grown foods were better for the environment and healthier than foods grown on fertilizers. I think its from that moment that we really began to feel a connection with the environment. After that, lots of lessons on topics such as environmental chemistry really spurred my passion for the environment.
What came first – Billy the plastic bag or Kids for Earth? Why did you decide to promote reusable bags?
I created Billy the plastic bag after watching a video called Message in the Waves, which showed some videos of albatross chicks rotting, and you could see all the plastic they had eaten in their stomachs. After that, I really felt the urge to make a larger impact and try to influence the environment in a positive manner.
After making the presentation, I founded Kids for Earth to be able to expand the presentation and be able to encourage the children to keep on acting after we’d shown the presentation in their school; Kids for Earth has allowed me to conduct competitions between schools that would have been more difficult if I’d just had the presentation.
How much support did you get from your teachers and parents? Did your teachers suggest you create the Kids for Earth blog?
My parents were very encouraging, right from the beginning. They have been helping me and my sister lots and it would have taken us much longer to get this far if not for their encouragement and guidance. Similarly, our teachers have been very helpful, especially in organising talks in schools.
For example, one of the teachers here at my school, Alice Smith, really encouraged me to do the talk in front of my year group, despite me being very nervous. If not for his encouragement, I doubt I would have gone through with the talk.
How did the national media find out about your campaign?
Our parents encourage us to look for sponsors when we require extra means and resources to realise our ideas and projects for Kids for Earth, and this is the reason why we started to talk to corporates and medias, and gained attention from some of the medias in Malaysia, such as the inflight magazine of Malaysian Airlines, the BFM ratio, and Astro, Malaysia’s largest cable TV company. Astro has an educational channel called TVIQ and they were planning for a “Kids Go Green” week.
We were referred to them by the father of one of our members. After our Billy the Plastic Bag presentation, they have decided to turn our presentation into a minute long filler. We have also agreed to help them come up with ideas for 3 more fillers and jointly conducted workshops in 3 local schools, in addition to the press conference we had with them.
Wow! How are you adjusting to your recent celebrity status?
We’re not celebrities! Though we are really reaching out to kids, it is the presentation that they remember, and not the people who showed it. What we want to show is that, as children, we can make an impact on how we treat the environment, and as sons and daughters, we can impact the way our parents treat the environment. Therefore, we really are playing an important role in preserving the environment. Who we are is not important. However, I must admit that getting recognition for what we do is very gratifying and makes us strive to perform better.
What’s next for Kids for Earth?
We’ve printed our presentation into a book in collaboration with YTL corporation. It is going to be released on the 22nd May, during YTL’s Climate Change week. Also, like I mentioned above, we are working with Astro TVIQ and they started airing our filler today…However, the next thing we really want to do is reach out to children and expand by getting children passionate about preserving the environment and wanting to spread the message. Kids for Earth is an open platform and we welcome kids who care about our Earth and would like to take care of it to join us. Please visit our website at www.kidsforearthasia.com or email me at gabrieltseng@kidsforearthasia.com
If you hadn’t heard about Kids for Earth before then we recommend you read about what they’re getting up to on their website. We’re going to be watching Kids for Earth very closely from now on – we’re pretty sure they’re on their way to being future world leaders – and we’d love to hear even more inspirational stories from schools in the UK.
As a special treat, here’s a Reboot, Recycle, Reuse poster for you to download to get your kids thinking.
Click image to start download
PS: You will need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the poster. Download the latest version here: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
Tags: Alice Smith School, billy the plastic bag, BrainPOP UK, Environment, kids for earth, reboot, recycle, reuse, spotlights, Teaching & Learning tales
Up for a rescue mission? Taking responsibility to reboot, recycle and reuse with this Spotlight on your world.
Topics included in Reboot, Recycle, Reuse include:
We put a request out last month for any recycling ideas you’ve used in school so we were really pleased when David Rogers (@daviderogers), Curriculum Leader for Geography at the Priory School in Portsmouth, sent us this super cross-curricular recycling lesson idea. Let us know if you use it!
David Rogers’ Recycling Lesson Idea: “We do this at my department, and are always really surprised at the fantastic ideas!”
“This lesson aims to get young people involved in changing their school community. Through a geographical enquiry, pupils will investigate the current state of recycling in the school and suggest improvements to the Headteacher.
To start: Investigate the ideas behind recycling. A good introduction is the BrainPOP UK movie on Recycling.
It would also be a good idea to follow up the idea with the POPquiz.
The key question to consider is whether recycling is a good idea. Use the Learning Event Generator to give the class some random choices of how to present their argument.
The next stage is to discover whether recycling goes on in your school. This takes the place of a Doorstep Geography investigation. Expanding some of the ideas covered in the BrainPOP movie, pupils work together (getting in some nice PLTS action) to create a questionnaire and data collection strategy.
For example, pupils could:
After this, the class should be able to crunch the numbers in order to present their data. What have they found out? Is your school good at recycling?
I then give my classes a number of options. In order to link in to Citizenship, we give each class a real budget in order to run a campaign. This could be either a campaign to reinforce the recycling message, or to suggest how the school could do better at recycling.
Get the class to decide on ideas. For example, will they create posters or send emails to the Head? The budget covers things like photocopying and gives a realistic insight into enterprise – how effective will their campaign be? Pupils may find that staff do not recycle because of a lack of facilities at school. They could campaign for better facilities.
This is a simple idea that extends some of the ideas behind the BrainPOP movie and empowers students to take an active interest in their community.
By learning about responsible protest, they become better citizens!”
We’d love to hear the ideas your students come up with. If you’re not based in a school, try this idea out at home. Instead of suggesting improvements to the Headteacher, how about suggesting improvements to parents?
To encourage you to get started, we’ve produced a Reboot, Recycle, Reuse poster especially for this Spotlight:
Click image to start download
Download and pin it up at school or at home so you always remember Tim & Moby’s tips on being green.
PS: You will need a PDF reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader to view the poster. Download the latest version here: http://get.adobe.com/uk/reader/
Tags: BrainPOP UK, cross curricular, david rogers, geography, lesson ideas, poster, reboot, recycling, spotlights
Visit the Spotlight on Reboot, Recycle, Reuse.
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Tags: BrainPOP UK, Environment, Global Citizenship, reboot, recycling, spotlights
