BrainPOP Homeschool Curriculum Review

I am always on the lookout for easy-to-use ways to supplement our homeschool curriculum with online learning. And I am always excited to find apps that my kids can use all by themselves. That’s why I was so excited to discover BrainPOP Homeschool. BrainPOP provides curriculum and educational resources for both public schools and homeschool parents to use with their kids. In this BrainPop Homeschool Curriculum Review, you’ll discover what you need to know before trying BrainPop Homeschool with your kids.

I received compensation and a subscription to BrainPOP Homeschool Combo in exchange for my honest review, but all the opinions in this post are my own. This post may contain affiliate links and I may earn a small commission for purchases made through those links.

What is BrainPOP Homeschool?

BrainPOP offers comprehensive education platforms for students in grades K-8. The platforms includes short educational videos about a wide range of topics. Kids can then apply the information that they learned by completing a variety of educational activities, including taking interactive quizzes, making a concept map, or creating a coding project or meme.

BrainPOP Homeschool vs BrainPOP Homeschool Jr.

When my family was signing up for BrainPOP, one of the first app subscription options that we had was whether to choose BrainPOP Homeschool or BrainPop Homeschool Jr.

The main difference between the two options is the grade level of the educational content that is included. Brain Pop Homeschool Jr. is designed for kids in grades K-3, while BrainPOP Homeschool includes content for third grade through eighth grade.

We noticed right away that BrainPOP Homeschool Jr. has lots of extra features so that younger students who are not yet independent readers will be able to use the app on their own. Most of the text is read aloud when you mouse over it or click on a speaker icon near the text.

My daughter is just learning how to read and she loved the read-aloud features in BrainPOP Homeschool Jr. She was so proud that she could use the program independently and she was excited to learn information that was at just the right level for her.

BrainPOP Homeschool includes additional BrainPOP topics that are appropriate for older students in upper elementary and middle school grade levels. It also offers a wider variety of creative ways for kids to apply the information they are learning with educational activities.

BrainPOP also offers a BrainPOP Homeschool Combo subscription, where students can use their BrainPOP Jr. username to log in to BrainPOP Homeschool as well. This gives kids access to all the topics and subject areas in both subscriptions.

BrainPOP also offers additional subscriptions that support foreign language learning and ELL students including BrainPOP Español, BrainPOP Français, and BrainPOP ELL. A separate BrainPOP science program is also available.

Learn more about the BrainPOP Subscription options here.

Components of BrainPOP Homeschool Curriculum

BrainPOP Homeschool includes everything that homeschool families need to learn about a wide variety of different topics.

Videos

One of the best parts of BrainPOP is the BrainPOP videos. These are a great way to help kids explore a topic in greater depth or to review what they have learned. Parents can use their teacher account to assign a specific movie topic that goes along with their homeschool curriculum, or kids can explore movies about different BrainPOP Topics.

BrainPOP Homeschool Subject Areas

Science: This is a great resource for kids to study ecology, chemistry, anthropology, famous scientists, and more in an online environment.

Social Studies: Kids can watch videos about a variety of different subject matter, including both United States and world history, government, and geography.

Language Arts: Older children can learn about grammar and writing on BrainPOP Homeschool, while early learners will enjoy additional resources for phonics and learning to read on BrainPOP Homeschool Jr.

Math: Kids can practice operations, algebra, geometry, probability, and more by watching a video about a particular topic and then taking related quizzes. Many of the quizzes offer both an easy quiz and a hard quiz for students to choose from. The math review games are also a lot of fun.

Arts and Music: In addition to learning basic concepts in art and music, students can also study famous artists and musicians. This category is combined with Tech in BrainPOP Homeschool Jr.

Health and SEL: In addition to science topics about body systems and nutrition, kids will learn about emotions, conflict resolution, and goal setting from these videos.

Engineering and Tech: This category includes a wide variety of topics like simple machines, computer science, and communications. This category is combined with Arts in BrainPOP Homeschool Jr.

Preview the Videos

Parents should be aware that BrainPOP Homeschool is a secular curriculum. Like any homeschool curriculum, parents should preview the educational movies to make sure that the topics presented are appropriate for their child’s age and maturity level.

It is also important to make sure that the videos align with your family’s worldview before sharing them with your kids.

Responses

One of my favorite parts about BrainPOP Homeschool is the wide variety of ways that kids can use the information that they learn in the videos to create a project or response to show their learning. I love how interactive BrainPOP Homeschool is. Kids have a wide variety of options available to them including:

Taking a quiz: The curriculum offers the choice of an easy quiz or a hard quiz, and sometimes a challenge. I love that many of the quiz questions are graded as kids take the quiz. This gives kids instant feedback about what they are learning, and makes it easier for parents at the same time! When kids finish the quiz, they can send the score to their teacher. All of the information will show up on your parent BrainPOP page.

Making a movie: Kids can use the built-in movie maker to create a movie that showcases what they learned in the video. This is a great way for young children to engage with the specific topics that they are learning about on a deeper level.

Creative coding: Kids can practice their coding and STEM skills with the creative coding response. This allows kids to use what they learned about in the videos to bring their ideas to life in the form of a story, game, comic strip, meme, and more.

Teacher Resources

BrainPOP makes it easy for parents to assign lessons and keep track of student progress through the BrainPOP teacher portal. Parents can review the various topics their kids have been studying or assign specific topics for their kids to complete throughout the school year.

Games

BrainPOP Homeschool also has a huge variety of fun games that kids can use to continue their learning. These games are a great way for kids to review what they are learning in a variety of subjects.

My kids absolutely love playing the games in BrainPOP Homeschool. They are always begging to play the games on my phone. I think they don’t even realize that they are learning because the games are so fun!

Check out everything that’s included in BrainPOP Homeschool!

Things we Love about BrainPOP Homeschool Curriculum

I am so glad that we discovered BrainPOP in our homeschool! Here are a few of our favorite reasons why we love BrainPOP Homeschool.

Trusted Technology

As a former teacher, I am always looking for a homeschool curriculum that is proven to help kids learn using best practices in education. I know that BrainPOP Homeschool fits this description.

BrainPOP was founded by Dr. Avraham Kadar in 1999. Since then it has been used by over 6 million teachers in traditional schools, including over 70% of US schools for distance learning during the pandemic.

I am so excited that BrainPOP is making this proven, high-quality, trusted learning resource available to home schooling families.

Active Learning

Although my kids love screen time, it is important to me that they are engaged in active learning when they are using apps in our homeschool. I love the way that BrainPOP Homeschool keeps my kids engaged with fun games and interesting activities. I know that this helps them remember what they are learning and build deeper connections with the new material.

Creativity

It is particularly important to me to give my kids lots of opportunities to be creative. I love that BrainPOP Homeschool is full of opportunities for creativity.

My son loves the movie-making and coding activities. I love that he is actively practicing what he is learning. I also love that there are so many different alternatives to just taking a quiz!

Lots of Choices

One of my favorite parts of homeschooling my kids is that they get to have choices about what and how they learn. I want them to be interested in the topics that they study and excited about learning. BrainPOP Homeschool makes this so easy for me.

My kids love choosing a different animated movie from over 1100 grade leveled topics. No matter what they are interested in, we can find what we are looking for on BrainPOP Homeschool.

My son has been working through a human anatomy curriculum and unit study this summer, so it was easy to find videos about the human body to assign to him.

I also love that there are so many different ways to respond. This helps me be able to customize my kids’ BrainPOP experience for their different learning styles. My son is a visual learner so he can make a graphic organizer like a mind map or create a movie to share his learning. My daughter is more of an auditory learner, so the videos help her take her learning to the next level.

Great for Different Learning Styles

My kids have very different learning styles, so when we’re choosing a homeschool curriculum for my whole family to use, I’m always looking for lesson plans that include options for different learning styles. I love the way BrainPOP Homeschool includes so many different options for how to learn.

My son loves a good challenge, so he is always motivated and excited to try the games. My daughter is an auditory learner and she loves the videos best. I love that both of my kids can find exactly what they need to learn in the way that their brain learns best with BrainPOP Homeschool!

Lots of Fun

Another important factor for me in choosing a homeschool curriculum is how much my kids like it. I knew we had a winner with BrainPOP Homeschool when my kids started begging to play with the app day after day. When I told my son yes, he called me the “best mommy ever” yesterday. Hyperbole? Maybe. But this kind of excitement tells me that this curriculum is a winner for him.

Easy to Use

Another feature of BrainPOP Homeschool that we love is the app. Several apps are available for iOS, Android, Kindle, or PC. We downloaded two of them: BrainPOP Featured Movie and the BrainPOP Jr. Movie of the Week app. At first, I was confused because the title seemed to me that the app would only provide free games and movies.

We quickly discovered that we could log in with our BrainPOP ID and password and get access to all the BrainPOP topics and videos on my mobile device! The app also offers limited activities, which are mostly quizzes.

The app is so easy to navigate. Even my 4-year-old had no problems navigating the app independently, which has lots of pictures to help her understand what she was clicking on.

I love that this app is available for families. We are always looking for ways that my kids can learn on the go, especially in the summer. BrainPOP Homeschool is a great solution.

Learn more about the BrainPOP Homeschool apps!

Perfect for Families

As a homeschool parent, I love that BrainPOP Homeschool will give us access to up to 4 separate learner profiles and a teacher profile with our account. This means that families can create a unique account for each of their children. We can create specific assignments for each child’s age and ability level. Then, parents can access each child’s progress using the teacher profile at a glance. I love how easy it is to use BrainPOP Homeschool for teaching the whole family at the same time.

Easy for Parents

I love the teacher dashboard on BrainPOP Homeschool as well. It is so easy for me to assign topics and activities that align with what we are studying in our homeschool. And, BrainPOP Homeschool even includes helpful resources for teachers and professional development. I love that I can learn how to be a better teacher with BrainPOP Homeschool right from the dashboard.

Try BrainPOP Homeschool for Yourself

BrainPOP Homeschool offers a two week free trial so that you can try out all the lessons and activities with your kids at no additional cost. If you are looking for a fun online curriculum for your kids that encourages active learning and includes lots of fun ways to practice right in the app, I highly recommend BrainPOP Homeschool.

Learn more about BrainPOP Homeschool and grab a free trial for your family!