Welcome to BrainPOP Homeschool! You’re one step closer to providing homeschool learning that’ll help you reach your curriculum and instructional goals—while still being the type of experience that your kids ask for again and again (and again).
Consider this your one-stop-shop guide to getting up and running on BrainPOP Homeschool. Before you know it, you’ll be assigning background-knowledge-building movies and connected activities (and navigating the accompanying teacher reports) like a pro.
How to log in to BrainPOP Homeschool
As the educator:
When you signed up for your subscription, you chose a username and password. This login information will be the same that you use to sign into your account!
Go to brainpop.com
In the top navigation bar, select log in, then "I'm a grownup"
Enter your educator credentials!
As the student:
If you want to log into your students' accounts, you and your students will first need to create the student accounts. You'll start this process as you roster your class for the first time. (Don't worry, we'll cover that in the next section.)
Once the accounts are created, if you want to log in as a student...
Go to brainpop.com
In the top navigation bar, select log in, then "I'm a kid"
How to roster your BrainPOP Homeschool class
With a homeschool subscription, you’ll get to create up to four student accounts—that means that up to four students can have their own BrainPOP universe, with their own differentiated assignments and activities. Their results will be tracked in your teacher account, helping you know what to focus on in tomorrow’s lesson.
And it all starts by rostering your class.
On your teacher dashboard, you'll first create a class, then invite students to create their own accounts through a teacher-generated class code. Here's how:
Log into your educator account.
Select "Dashboard" at the top of the screen.
Click "New Class."
Create a class name—a Class Code will automatically be generated for you.
Select "Create Class."
Students will use the Class Code to join the class. To join your class, students should:
Select "Enter Code" at the top of the screen.
Enter the Class Code and click Submit.
Here's what they will see:
If students are creating their individual accounts for the first time, they should click Create Account and complete the form. Here, they will choose their username, password, and provide their first and last name.
Congratulations! Your class is now rostered. Your class will now show up on your teacher dashboard—and from there, you'll be able to create differentiated assignments and view your teacher reports to see how each student in your class is doing.
For more information, and to ask questions in the chat, check out our Help Center.
How to create BrainPOP Homeschool assignments
Now that you have your teacher and student accounts (and the accompanying class) all set up, you're ready to start creating assignments! This gives you the power to differentiate today's lesson—and tomorrow's, and the day after's—to make sure your homeschoolers are learning in a way that's engaging, challenging, and accessible. When you differentiate on BrainPOP, you'll create a separate assignment for all selected students.
There are a few ways to go about assigning an activity.
Directly from a topic or activity page
If you’re browsing BrainPOP (through the search bar or by searching through subjects and units), and find a specific activity you’d like to assign—say, you’ve been studying Abraham Lincoln and want to assign a Quiz on him—you can assign the activity directly from the activity page.
To assign from here:
Click the "Assign" button on the activity page.
Fill in key information about your assignment.
Add a title and optional instructions or grade bands/levels.
Click "Select Students"—since you have one class, you'll be able to immediately select individual students, or assign to the entire class.
This is where you get to differentiate. Who will most benefit from this activity? Select those students.
Review your choices...
And assign!
You can also "Add more" activities to this assignment. If you do this, you'll be taken to the Assignment Builder (which we'll break down in the next section). But overall, repeat the process outlined above—and keep in mind that, this time, you'll be selecting activities just for this differentiated group of students.
From your teacher dashboard
Once you're logged into your educator account, you'll have access to a "Dashboard' in the upper navigation bar. This will be your home base for all of your educator superpowers—in addition to creating a class, it's also where you can view your class, create assignments, and click into those assignments to see your teacher reports on them.
To create an assignment directly from here, scroll until you get to Assignments.
Click "Create an Assignment."
This opens your Assignment Builder. It’s a very similar process to assigning something directly from the topic page—but here, you get a checklist full of options right away. From one page, you can assign all activities that are available on a given topic to the same differentiated group of students (or single student!). If you have more than one differentiated group, you’ll create more than one assignment.
Creating an assignment here has three steps: first, decide which activities you’re going to assign. Then, select which students you’re assigning those activities to—and finally assign it all to be due on a specific date.
Depending on whether you have BrainPOP Jr. Homeschool or BrainPOP Homeschool (for grades 3-8), you’ll have different options for each activity. If you want to learn more about the benefits of each activity on the assignment builder for grades 3-8, read our in-depth guide!
Here are the basics:
Select which activities—and, if applicable, at which difficulty or grade level—to include in the assignment.
Click “Add Another Topic” (at the bottom of the list of activities) to add activities from other topics.
Click “Next” to move to the “Select Students” step.
Select the full class, or click “Select Specific Students” to assign only to some students in a class.
Click “Save & Finish Later” to save a draft—or click “Next” to move on to the Assign step.
The title is required. Instructions, due date, and “schedule for later date” are optional.
To change the order of features in the assignment, click and hold the dots next to the feature and drag it to your chosen place in the sequence.
You can edit the learning activities or class selection before assigning.
When you’re finished, click “Assign” to send the assignment to your students.
After you’ve published your assignment, you'll have the option to view the assignment as a student, copy a link to embed the assignment in another platform, or share to Google Classroom.
Navigating BrainPOP Homeschool Teacher Reports
After students have completed their assignments, you’ll be able to view their work and track their progress via an individual report for that assignment.
These reports allow you to track student understanding of each activity—and each question within it—so you can plan future differentiated instruction.
There are two major tabs you can utilize as a homeschool teacher: Assignment Progress and Activity Progress. (Coming soon: you’ll be able to use the Standards tab, which lets you know how they’re performing on the literacy skills emphasized in their grade-level state ELA standards).
Assignment Progress
The Assignment Progress tab lets you:
View each student’s work on all activities—both autograded and open-ended—within each assignment
See each student’s autograded activity scores (with an answer key!) and a benchmark comparison to their peers
Identify who needs a little more help—and in what—so you can adapt tomorrow’s instruction to meet their needs
Reassign activities directly from the report
Activity Progress
By cycling through each option in the “Activity” dropdown at the top of the report, with the Activity Progress tab you can:
Quickly review how each student scored on each auto-graded question within an activity
Comment on students’ open-ended work
Dive deeper to understand which areas of a topic—or an activity—students are struggling with, and which they grasp
All in all, reports give you a high-level overview of how each of your students understands the activity’s content material. Explore the reports on your own, experiment with each feature, and decide how they’ll work best for you to help you meet your instructional goals.
Benefits of using BrainPOP Homeschool
Spark your homeschoolers’ interest in what they’re learning—and make them want to learn more. BrainPOP is built to connect with students at their level. Each part (from Moby’s beep and colors to the style of movie and activity writing) is designed with children’s developmental needs (and learning preferences) in mind. This means that students don’t only connect with BrainPOP—they connect with what they’re learning on BrainPOP. Once they’re connected, they’re invested in their own learning… and therefore want to learn more.
Feel confident in your homeschool instruction. Because students are already engaged, you can check one to-do off of your teacher list—and instead focus on reaching your instructional goals and curriculum needs. However you teach when using BrainPOP, you can be confident that students will be engaged and challenged in a way that resonates with them.
Build your homeschoolers’ background knowledge and vocabulary to help them deeply understand their curriculum. Students aren’t only engaged and challenged on BrainPOP—they also build the key background knowledge and vocabulary that’ll help them engage with your curriculum. Research shows that knowledge makes more knowledge—that students who come into a text knowing the key vocabulary and concepts have an easier time comprehending and remembering what they’re reading…making it easier for them to, in turn, acquire new knowledge and comprehend more things. BrainPOP’s movies and activities are carefully constructed to build key background knowledge related to grade-appropriate topics—which means that, by using BrainPOP, students will have an easier time understanding what they’re learning outside of it.
Get started with BrainPOP Homeschool
You’re officially ready to start your BrainPOP Homeschool journey! If you have any questions, please consult our Help Center—we’re always here to help answer any questions you may have. In the meantime, we recommend that you log in and get started!
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.