BrainPop Jr.: Thanksgiving

What it is: BrainPop is usually a paid service.  This week, BrainPop Jr. is offering their Thanksgiving with Annie and Mobi for free.  The video teaches students about the first Thanksgiving and includes plenty of facts about the Pilgrims, the Wampanoag, and the famous harvest feast.  The video includes several discussion and dig-deeper questions throughout.  The questions appear on a notebook next to the video.  You can pause the video when the questions appear for a class discussion or for independent reflection in a journal.  You can print out an accompanying notebook page that lists all of the questions from the video.  At the end of the video, you can choose to “learn more” about the first Thanksgiving with additional activities, crafts, games, suggested reading, drawing, writing, interactive word wall, and quizzes.

How to integrate BrainPop Jr.: Thanksgiving into the classroom: The BrainPop Jr. Thanksgiving video is a fun way to teach about the history of Thanksgiving to younger students.  The video is about 4 minutes long and includes multiple opportunities for discussion and check points for understanding.  There are also additional follow up activities.  Some of the activities are for print (a Thanksgiving “what I’m thankful for” turkey), and some are to be completed on the computer.  Watch the video as a class with an interactive whiteboard or projector.  Set up your classroom computer with the “learn more” activities for students to complete as a center activity.  Alternatively, students could watch and complete the activities independently in the computer lab setting.  The interactive word wall is a great way for students to learn some of the vocabulary associated with Thanksgiving.

Tips: Print out the Thanksgiving Notebook for your students to fill out as they watch the video.  Thank you to @mrscoggin for sharing this freebie on Twitter!

Leave a comment and share how you are using BrainPop Jr.: Thanksgiving  in your classroom.