POPtalk

If you have a passion for education, in any which way, shape, or form, you will undoubtedly have heard of the Times Educational Supplement.

If you’ve checked out their fabulous website you may also have happened along the Resources section. A section spilling with over 300,000 teaching resources, all ready and waiting for you to download…for free.

The best news is it’s growing. 

TES is always looking for teaching materials that can enhance the resource bank and inspire the teaching community. They are working with more and more content partners, helping them engage with the largest network of teachers in the world.

At BrainPOP, we know our content is quality assured, teacher, parent and child approved. So when we were presented with the opportunity to partner up with an organisation such as the TES to get our quality resource into the hands, homes, and classrooms of even more people, we jumped at it.

BrainPOP is an official TES Teaching Resources partner. It might not mean a lot to the folks already using BrainPOP but we like to think that it will get BrainPOP under the nose of lots of teachers who haven’t stumbled across our most excellent resource yet.

We’ve included 21 permanently free movies, our Swine Flu movie, September 11th topic, and a selection of other downloadable teacher-made resources including Promethean flipcharts, Smart notebooks, lesson plans and powerpoints.

If you do a quick search for “BrainPOP” on TES, here’s what you’ll find at the end of the rainbow.

Quite a pot of gold we reckon and we have every intention of building on the resources available in future.

If you click on any of the resource links, you’ll find a POPbox which plays the topic movie within the TES site, and also links to the movie, quiz, FYI and activity on BrainPOP, all available for free. Here’s an example resources page:

If the free movies aren’t quite what you’re looking for, have a quick search on BrainPOP to see what comes up. You’re also likely to find some other gems on TES to spark your interest.

With BrainPOP and TES resources in your teaching arsenal we’re sure you’ll find something!

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• Getting organised with BrainPOP

Graphic organisers engage students with online content by helping to apply learning, organise ideas, classify information, sequence events, or compare and contrast.

We’ve produced a set of 30 printable graphic organisers which you can start using in class today. We’ve outlined a few examples of how to use them below but they’re a flexible resource so it’s entirely up to you how you choose to use them.

By making use of the blank graphic organisers and other BrainPOP tools students can express their ideas in many ways.  When students explain ideas and processes in their own words, it encourages higher level understanding. You can also rely on graphic organisers as a tool to encourage less-able students to get started.

A few essential tips:

1. Have a completed example ready to give students an idea of the answers/ideas you’re looking for
2. Watch the movie beforehand so you get a good idea of pause points for note taking
3. Save your favourite graphic organisers to a file folder or integrate into your already existing lesson plans

Literacy – Prewriting movie

In writing, a little organisation can go a long way! In this movie, you’ll learn how to get your thoughts down on paper, as Tim and Moby introduce you to some organisational strategies for writing.

• Find out Five Questions to ask yourself before you start writing, plus three different methods of organising and focusing your thoughts (Main Idea & Supporting Details can help with this!).
• Learn how to use a Word Web to narrow your field and why it helps to have your thoughts in sequence (the Story Mountain is handy for this).
• See how a Story Map can make your writing more exciting.

Geography – Water Cycle movie

Tim and Moby show you how water is transferred from lakes and seas, to the atmosphere and back to the ground. Graphic organisers can help students classify the information and apply a sequence to events.

• Pause the movie at significant points so your class can record the basic process in the Flowchart – it might be more fun to draw diagrams of each process.
• Learn what powers the water cycle and use Cause & Effect to show how important processes work. For example, heat from the Sun breaks down water molecules causing them to evaporate.
• You’ll also see how our water supply is kept fresh and plentiful! Use Balloons to jot down a few of Tim’s suggestions.

Scientific Investigation – Kinetic Energy movie

In this movie, Tim and Moby tell you all about the energy of motion.

• You’ll learn essential differences between kinetic and potential energy. Why not have the kids use the Compare graphic organiser at this point?
• See how kinetic energy can be transferred from one object to another and how it can even be transformed into electricity. Have your students use Cause & Effect to record different examples of kinetic energy being transferred.
• After watching, conduct an experiment to demonstrate potential and kinetic energy. Have the kids note down the details of the experiment on Experiment Observations.

If you incorporate our graphic organisers into lessons we’d like to hear how you use them. We’d also love it if you could help us grow our library of resources by submitting your own graphic organisers.

Email info@brainpop.co.uk with your classroom stories and your own graphic organisers and we guarantee you will be warmly rewarded!

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