Ideas for Using BrainPOP Jr. to Teach Health
BrainPOP Jr. can help you teach and reinforce lots of key health concepts, including general wellness, safety, interpersonal relationships, bodies and body systems, teeth and oral hygiene, healthy eating, and drug safety! Here are some ideas to get you started:
Use all the BrainPOP Jr. movies within a notebook to help students make connections between topics. For example, when teaching bodies, you can use the movies and features for all of the body systems BrainPOP Jr covers. The movies in our teeth, food, and drugs notebooks also work well as a cohesive unit. Use one movie and its features each week. You can even have students create a science journal, lap book, or portfolio about the unit you’re studying, and include the printable BrainPOP Jr. resources inside it.
Use Word Play to reinforce health vocabulary. Each movie has Word Play which contains five key words and their student-friendly definitions. You can print the Word Play out and make copies for students to keep in their notebooks. You can also add these words to your own class word wall.
Use the Write About It and/or Take About It features to integrate language opportunities. Project either of these two features for the movie topic and type directly into it as a model for students. Then have students respond on their own or collaboratively. You can print the feature out or have students type their responses directly into it. If students type their answers, you can take a partial screenshot of their work to create an image. Upload the image to a school or class blog and share what students have learned!
Use Annie’s Notebook to create health journals. Click the words “Print Notebook” from any BrainPOP Jr. topic page and get a printable PDF of the questions Annie writes in her notebook during the movie. Students can staple these into a booklet or glue them into existing journals to create their own notebooks, just like Annie! The class can add pages and information to their journals all through the year.
