POPtalk

COMPETITION TIME! Would you like to see YOUR design on a new Moby badge?

This competition is open to anyone under 16. All you need to do is:

1. Download and print this Badge Design Competition template. IMPORTANT: Use the big circle for your design and keep inside the lines as best you can. We’ve added an “actual size” circle too so you have an idea of how big your badge would be in real life.
2. We like to make badges that are inspired by our topics. Your design must incorporate Moby in some way – perhaps in costume, or in a famous historical setting, or in the style of your favourite artist! The possibilities are endless. For inspiration see some of the badges we’ve made in the past. But be creative as you like!
3. Don’t take too long! The competition closes midnight 26th May 2013.
4. Scan or photograph it and send it to us using the form below. You could also post your entry to:

Moby Badge Competition
BrainPOP UK
58 St. Aldates
Oxford
OX1 1ST

We’ll pick our favourite design which will be made into a REAL Moby badge later this summer. The winner will not only be sent a first edition print of their badge, but also the first person in the world to get a pack of our upcoming new badge collection.

Submission criteria

• Finished work must be submitted using the Badge Design Competition template
• This competition is for children up to 16 years old
• The winner will be chosen by the BrainPOP UK team (Moby and BrainPOP’s decision is final)
• The winning design will be interpreted by the BrainPOP design team and re-created in the BrainPOP graphics style (BrainPOP’s design decision is final)
• Entries must be received by midnight on 26th May 2013 (entries received after the competition deadline will not be considered)
• The winners will be contacted by email. Failure to provide a working email address will void your entry
• Winning entries will be showcased on this blog
• You can read our full Terms and Conditions on our website

Good luck, everyone!

Related Posts:

• BrainPOP and National Science and Engineering week
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Get Cubed Competition
• Spotlight on Creative Writing
• And…action! Make a Tim & Moby movie competition

March 15th-24th 2013 is National Science and Engineering week.

“National Science & Engineering Week shines the spotlight each March on how the sciences, technology, engineering and maths relate to our everyday lives, and helps to inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers with fun and participative events and activities. Any organisation or community group can take part and plan an event or activity to inspire their own audiences, and our theme for 2013 is ‘invention and discovery’.”

We were very excited to be invited to be sponsors of this year’s grand prize draw. Schools that organise an event or activity and register it online by 11 February 2013 will be automatically entered into the prize draw. 5 lucky schools will win a 24/7 annual school licence to BrainPOP UK worth up to £699.

We also love the theme of ‘invention and discovery’. To help you get started we asked Tim & Moby to suggest BrainPOP resources that they think will provide you a little bit of inspiration on this theme.

Ideas that changed the world

A great place to begin is to dive into our Spotlight “Ideas that changed the world“. In there you’ll find movies on the most significant inventions and discoveries of all time such as Natural Selection, Newton’s Laws and the Internet. Think big, BrainPOPpers!

“If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants” – Isaac Newton

All scientific discovery owes a debt to the great minds that have come before it. Learn about and be inspired by some of the greatest thinkers of all time:

• Charles Darwin
• Isaac Newton
• Leonardo Da Vinci
• Marie Curie
• Ada Lovelace

From the atomic level to the Universe itself watch and listen as Tim & Moby introduce you to humanities greatest scientific inventions & discoveries!

• Dolly the Sheep
• Stem cells
• Dark matter
• Lasers
• Robots
• Microscopes
• Vaccines
• Atomic model
• International space station
• Computer history
• Space flight
• Fuel cells
• Pasteurisation
• Telescopes
• Nanotechnology
• Carbon dating

So what are you waiting for, young Science geniuses? Get inventing and discovering!

Related Posts:

• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Get Cubed Competition
• Spotlight on Creative Writing
• And…action! Make a Tim & Moby movie competition
• For Your Information – The Movie

After much discussion and debate over our favourite entries into the Get Cubed creative writing competition, we’ve narrowed it down to one winner.

The winning story stood out for being a very well thought out piece, with attention-grabbing paragraph starters, and wonderful use of colourful adverbs and dialogue. We also loved how well the story cube images were incorporated as plot devices: the Map, the Shark, and the Crown.

Without further ado, the winning tale.

THE LEGACY by Sophie Millward-Sadler

The pong of pig swill assaulted Kathy before she even opened her eyes. It was that bad.

Reluctantly, she opened her eyes to the sight of the rundown yard where she worked. A rotten fence ran round the animal enclosure. Over the gravel driveway was a rusty shed that was an aeroplane hangar, until the airfield was destroyed by a bomb.

There was a grunting sound from her left; it was her only pig, Betty. Groaning, Kathy got up and poured out some potato peelings.

“We need more,” she said. Betty grunted. “I’ll have to go to town and buy some.”

Kathy slipped over the fence and walked down to the town. It was cold.

She got to the potato stall fine. It was just as she was getting her money to pay when hands grabbed her. She was dragged down the street and onto a ship. Once onboard, she was shoved down below decks. It was dark and dank.

There was a clanking sound; the anchor being raised. A person appeared at the top of the ladder. He was bald with yellow teeth.

“Now luvvy. We aren’t gonna hurt as long as you do what we want. Agreed?”

Kathy nodded her head.

“All we want you to do is follow a map and dig something up for us. Agreed?”

She nodded again.

“Oh, and you’ve got to swim to shore.” With that, he left. Kathy slept.

When she woke up, the bald man was standing over her. Next thing, Kathy was teetering on the end of the plank. A shove from behind and she went tumbling into the turquoise water.

Gasping, she emerged and began swimming for the shore of an island that was a few hundred metres away. A leather bag hit her head. Kathy picked it up and carried on swimming. A few seconds later, she caught a glimpse of a silver fin cutting through the water towards her. It couldn’t be a shark-

It rose out of the water and its massive mouth gaped open, rows of menacing teeth gleaming in the sun.

Kathy swore that she had never swum as quickly.

When she reached shore, she was wheezing with the effort. As she recovered, Kathy opened the top of the leather bag and pulled out a map. A clichéd red X was marked just underneath a palm tree that was actually very close to her. A shovel was placed at the base of the trunk.

Sighing, Kathy began digging.

An hour and a small tonne of sand later, Kathy had a big chest next to her. It was open. Inside was an old document.

This document states that the first child of Edward Cross is the rightful heir of this island and all of its lands.

What? Edward Cross was Kathy’s father. That couldn’t be true.

Underneath this document is the crown of these islands. Wear it with pride.

Stunned, Kathy picked up the crown and placed it on her head.

She was a queen.

For her hard work, Sophie has won an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork (shown above).

If you’d like to try your hand at some creative writing, the story cubes are still available to download here: BrainPOP UK Story Cubes

Related Posts:

• Get Cubed Competition
• Spotlight on Creative Writing
• Spotlight on Weaving Tales
• Tim & Moby take the 100 Word Challenge
• Spotlight on Weaving Tales

Win an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork, inspired by your own writing!

As part of September’s Creative Writing spotlight we’ve created story cubes and we want you to use them as inspiration for our Get Cubed creative writing competition.

There are three different cubes to make. Download the PDF, print the cubes, cut out, and assemble.

Ask an adult to help if you’re having difficulty.

Click the image to start download.

It’s time to get rolling

Roll your completed cubes. Whichever three images land face up are your inspiration for some storytelling!

If you don’t like the images you get, you can always take another roll, we won’t tell anyone

And now for some creative writing

We want you to produce a piece of writing inspired by the story cubes and, whatever you create, we’d like to see it. Submit your finished piece for us to judge and we’ll pick a winner.

If you win, you’ll get an exclusive piece of BrainPOP artwork based on your submission.

Six runners-up will win back to school goodie sets.

We’ll also feature our favourite entries here on POPtalk.

Submission criteria

• Finished work must be no longer than 500 words
• This competition is for children aged between 6 and 15
• The winner will be chosen by the BrainPOP UK team
• You must use the BrainPOP story cubes as the starting point for your writing
• Entries must be received by midnight on 21st September 2012
• Entries received after the competition deadline will not be considered
• The winners will be contacted by email before the end of September
• Winning entries will be showcased on this blog
• You can read our full Terms and Conditions on our website

Submit your finished writing using the form below.

Related Posts:

• Spotlight on Creative Writing
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Spotlight on Earth Awareness
• Remember, remember…we’re here all year round
• Spotlight on Reboot, Recycle, Reuse

This collection of English movies, quizzes, printable resources, and activities will provide you with the essential knowledge and skills for all types of creative writing and storytelling.

The topics highlighted for Creative Writing include:

• Biography – NEW!
• Idioms & Cliches
• Lord of the Flies
• Mood & Tone
• Poetry
• Prewriting: Choosing a topic – NEW!
• Prewriting: Organising your thoughts
• Show not Tell
• Similes & Metaphors
• The Writing Process
• Types of Writing
• Writing Dialogue

And we’ve introduced a host of new Famous Author topics:

• Tim & Moby talk American Greats
• Introducing J.R.R. Tolkien

We’d like you to use this arsenal of support to help you take part in our Get Cubed competition: BrainPOP Story Cubes competition.

Get Cubed Competition

Related Posts:

• Get Cubed Competition
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Spotlight on Weaving Tales
• Spotlight on Weaving Tales
• And…action! Make a Tim & Moby movie competition

Attention fledgling writers and movie producers!

As part of our forthcoming Spotlights, Weaving Tales and Making Movies, we have a challenge for you. Weaving Tales is about storytelling, and the skills you need to create a good story and Making Movies is about the art of film making – whether it’s animation or a major Hollywood blockbuster.

The competition challenge: Make a short movie starring Tim & Moby using one of 3 scenarios.

To help you take you from script to screen we’ve written our own 3 step plan to help get you started: Tim & Moby’s guide to making movies .

• The winning entry in the 7-11 category will win a Flip Mino HD 3rd Generation camera and a collection of the Radio Times Top 10 family movies ever on DVD.
• The winning entry in the 12-16 category will win a Flip Mino HD 3rd Generation camera and a collection of the BFI’s Top 10 British films on DVD plus the book, play or screenplay.

Competition submission criteria:

• This competition is for children between 7-11 and 12-16.
• The winner will be chosen by the BrainPOP UK team. Editors’ decision is final.
• You must use one of the scenarios below as the starting point for your movie.
  
• The deadline is midnight 16th December 2010. Entries received after this point will not be considered.
• Finished movies must be under 3 mins and be all your own work.
• They must be in a digital format.
• The winners will be contacted by email in the new year.
• The winning entries will be showcased on this blog and shown at BETT 2011 on our stand.

You can read our full Terms and Conditions on our website.

Please download these three scenarios and pick JUST ONE to form the basis of your Tim & Moby script. Where you take it is up to you!

Script Option 1 – Adventure

“Tim and Moby stand in the Prime Minister’s secret underground office…“

Script Option 2 – Romance

“Tim stands alone in a shop browsing through a rack of t-shirts. Moby comes stomping into the shop accompanied by a stranger…“

Script Option 3 – Horror

“Tim and Moby are walking through a cold, dark forest…“

TOP TIP! Watch The Writing Process , Writing Dialogue & Filmmaking movies on BrainPOP UK to get advice from Tim & Moby.

You are welcome to submit your finished movie in any way you like, as long as it can be accessed online.

1. Live acting: You’re going to need a camcorder or phone with a camera function to record your movie, actors, a studio space and costumes. And find someone to shout “CUT!”
2. Green screen: You might also want to use chroma screen technology (here is a very useful and comprehensive step by step guide to using green screen in the classroom by Sheffield South Learning center).
3. Stop motion animation: You could use claymation like Wallace and Gromit, papercraft like “Star Wars in 2 minutes” or using physical objects like the amazing “Dot. The world’s smallest stop-motion animation“. Have a read of this wonderful guide to stop motion animation for beginners on Photojojo.
4. Audio play: If you don’t have access to a camera, you could just record your script as a podcast play with sound effects – a fun challenge on its own! Try Podium.
5. Digital animation: There are lots of amazing animation tools online. Try Anithings (animations), Zooburst (3D pop up ebooks), Xtranormal (you type and the characters talk) and Comic life (make a comic form your images) and many more. Or you may be a Flash guru.

You can submit your finished movie if it’s under 10MB using the form below. If it’s over 10MB or you host it online get in touch with info@brainpop.co.uk.

We can’t wait to see what you come up with. Good luck everyone.

Aaaand, ACTION!

Related Posts:

• Spotlight on…Making Movies
• Movie Competition Prizes
• Green screen fun and short, short stories
• Spotlight on Creative Writing
• Spotlight on Weaving Tales

We’re about to welcome a brand new feature to BrainPOP UK: The FYI.

FYIs contain astonishing facts, figures and information, to be used as extension material to the BrainPOP UK movies. Every movie will soon have its very own FYI.

And, just for fun, we’re putting together a little viral movie that we want YOU to star in called “How many ways are there to say “For Your Information“?

It’s very simple.

1. Video yourself or create an image saying/displaying the phrase “For Your Information“.
2. Say it, shout it, whisper it, sing it, sign it, synthesise it. Write it on a blackboard. Create it in alphabetti spaghetti. Ask your parrot to repeat it. Any way you like (be creative but no naughtiness please).
3. Submit your video or image using the form below or by email to info@brainpop.co.uk

Some last things:

• It has to be your own original work. Don’t include any commercial music or anything as we won’t be able to use it.
• The final edit will be going on our Youtube channel as an embeddable, sharable movie.
• The best/most creative/funniest “For Your Information” will win a 6 month subscription to BrainPOP UK. Editor’s decision is final. Everyone who submits an entry will have a sneak peak at some of the FYIs in advance.
• The cut off date for submissions is 5pm 9th September 2010, so you’ve only got about a week to join in. Its premiere will be 13th September, alongside the FYIs.

So go for it! Tim, Moby & The BrainPOP UK team cannot wait to see what you can do.

Related Posts:

• Design a BrainPOP badge competition
• BrainPOP and National Science and Engineering week
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Get Cubed Competition
• Spotlight on Creative Writing

Thanks to everyone who came along and helped make a success of the West Lothian BrainPOP UK demo at the West Lothian Education Centre yesterday.

We’re really glad so many teachers attended and were keen to have a shot!

Thanks especially to all who took part in our mini-competition.

Congratulations to t-shirt winners, Kirsteen, Jennifer and Ms. Ferguson! Your Mobylicious prizes are heading northbound today so keep an eye out for a pretty orange package popping through your letterbox…

Related Posts:

• And…action! Make a Tim & Moby movie competition
• Design a BrainPOP badge competition
• BrainPOP and National Science and Engineering week
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Get Cubed Competition

How often do you hear the following phrase, directly after someone receives a prize:

“I never win anything!”

Well, we hope the following schools utter this immortal phrase when they read their emails this morning. Because they all won some nifty prizes when they came to chat to us on our stand at a recent Aberdeenshire authority event and signed up to a free trial.

1. First prize – A 6-month school subscription to BrainPOP UK, a limited edition Moby T-shirt and a mug:
   Morag Andrew at Fishermoss School
2. Second prize – A limited edition Moby T-shirt, mug and mouse mat:
   Allicia Coates at Mearns Academy
3. Third prize – A limited edition Moby T-shirt and mouse mat:
   Jill Duncary at Clerkhill School

Well done to all 3 of you.

So next time give the competition a try – you never know when it might be YOU!

Related Posts:

• Design a BrainPOP badge competition
• BrainPOP and National Science and Engineering week
• BrainPOP on Probationer Teacher Scotland
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
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A few months back we received an email out of the blue from a lady called Patsy from Hamlets florist in Eccles, Manchester.

She said:

“We are organizing a flower painting competition for primary school children in our local area…we have variety of prizes which includes a meal for four at The Pasta Hut and cinema tickets for a family. Good prizes during the credit crunch. But we need a golden prize, one that all the competing schools will be talking about and aiming for. Now, could we ask you if you could possibly sponsor one of or the overall winner?”

By Eccles, how could we resist? It’s lovely to be considered to be a golden prize. We said we’d be happy to provide a whole school annual subscription and 5 home use subscriptions, for parents and kids to use out of school.

To make it a little more fun we created some prize certificates. Moby’s painting was not quite as good as the winners, but he has used a bold palette and has always taken a Fauvist approach to his work, so full marks for trying.

PS: If you’re holding an art competition in your school and want to use this certificate contact us and we’ll amend the text to whatever you like (as long as it fits), for free, and send you the new image for you to print. Perhaps our Impressionism movie might inspire you.

12 primary schools eventually entered with lots of wonderful still life paintings of flowers. The presentation night was held at the Working Mens Club in Patricroft. The winner was announced and prizes presented by the Mayor on the 24th March.

Clarendon Cottage Primary school was announced as the overall winner but…well, I’ll let Patsy explain:

“I have got one problem. Nobody from the overall winning school, Clarendon Cottage, turned up on the presentation night! The headmistress said she didn’t know they had to come.

I couldn’t change things at such a late stage as it wasn’t the children’s fault. But I did not feel it was right just to drop off the silver cup and the golden prize at the school. A proper presentation of the golden prize and of the cup was still needed even for the child’s sake and also to get you and the Children Services some pictures for your efforts at the very least.”

So the BrainPOP UK golden prize was eventually presented not by the Mayor but by Patsy herself. And for all the effort she went to arranging all this for her local community we think this worked out just right.

So well done to Patsy and everyone at Clarendon Cottage, the standard of entry was extremely high. I’ll leave the last comment to her: “Anyway, the outcome is that the interest for next year is so far through the roof going on the feedback, and parents have called in the shop to thank us.”

Related Posts:

• Design a BrainPOP badge competition
• BrainPOP and National Science and Engineering week
• Sparking imaginations with story cubes
• Get Cubed Competition
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