Learning Activities
5 Ways Make-a-Movie Boosts Your Instruction on BrainPOP
What if you could turn your classroom into a movie studio, while still keeping everyone focused on the day’s lesson? Let us introduce you to Make-a-Movie, where students can easily (and creatively!) show what they know by making their own movie about it.
More specifically, students build their own BrainPOP-style animated movies, starting with BrainPOP’s signature guiding question that activates prior knowledge. Students drag and drop images, add text, and record their own voice narration to string together a story based on their background knowledge from the rest of the BrainPOP topic.
For years, teachers have loved Make-a-Movie—and for good reason. In addition to sparking creativity and a love of storytelling, it also develops students’ higher order thinking skills and helps them make sense of what they’ve learned. Let’s dive a bit deeper into its instructional benefits.
Make-a-Movie helps students…
Feel as confident as a director
BrainPOP’s movies help level the playing field to make sure that every student has the background knowledge they need to engage with standards-aligned content. BrainPOP’s activities, meanwhile, help build comprehension and vocabulary skills while deepening understanding. This means that— by the time you’ve assigned Make-a-Movie, students will be so familiar with the material that they’ll complete this project with pride and confidence.
Use higher order thinking skills to construct and communicate a story
When creating their own BrainPOP movie from scratch, students not only have to remember what they’ve just learned—they also have to also apply it to answer the guiding question, structure a story, and effectively communicate that story. All of that means that students are honing their critical thinking, comprehension, and problem-solving skills—or, in other words, their higher order thinking skills.
Deeply understand what they’ve learned
Activating all of these skills to make a movie about the day’s content, in essence, makes learning “sticky.” Research tells us that incorporating skill-building alongside knowledge-building helps learners connect new information to information they already know—helping new ideas transfer more easily from working to long-term memory.
Build technology skills—from movie editing to beyond
Even as adults, working with a new technology—especially movie-making software!—might feel daunting. Through its familiar subject matter and built-in scaffolds, Make-a-Movie guides students through working with new digital tools—getting them comfortable with the kinds of technology that will only become more prevalent throughout their lives (and maybe even spark an interest in movie-making specifically!).
Spark a love of storytelling and creativity
Making a movie is inherently an innovative endeavor; Make-a-Movie takes it up a notch by letting students use their creativity to show what they know. Students who don’t feel as confident can feel supported in using the familiar content material and characters, while students who are bursting with creativity can feel free to make their movie their very own. Who knows? It may even spark a lifelong love of storytelling.
Red carpet-worthy learning
Want to take Make-a-Movie to the next level? Take a page out of Certified BrainPOP Educator Monica Sepa-LaFemina’s book—she hosts an annual BrainPOP Movie Film Festival for her third graders in New Jersey. “The energy in the room is palpable as students present their projects,” she says. “Their pride and confidence soar as they showcase their hard work. Their creativity, the depth of content, and the innovative use of features never cease to amaze me year after year.”
And…action! Learn more about BrainPOP (and Make-a-Movie).
AnnaLiese Burich is a product marketing manager at BrainPOP with a history of Edtech writing experience. She holds an MA in Magazine Journalism and an MA in English Literature.
