BrainPop: Make-a-Movie

Our fourth graders are exploring Westward Expansion right now.  They've been working on a non-fiction piece about what they're learning.  The usual, right?

Or not.

Super excited when the team asked if there was a way to turn this into a BrainPop video!  So that's exactly what we did!

The teachers assigned the Westward Expansion video and Make-a-Movie to their students.  From there, we walked through, step by step, turning their writing into a BrainPop video!  Students took their thesis statement and turned it into a question for the traditional BrainPop letter.  Then they created a slide for background information, before adding supporting slides to elaborate on their thesis.  They typed in their content, added graphics, and worked the BrainPop magic!

Let me tell you... 50 fourth graders, four teachers, plus me, the techie.... despite the noise level?  It went really well!  The kids got way more done in the period than I anticipated, and I swear I saw ideas bubbling up over the teachers heads as they helped the kids with their project.  Look for a link to their videos soon!

Thanks for another win, BrainPop!