Free BBC Resources for Your Classroom: Dinosaurs, Bluey, Planet Earth and News

Vicki Davis (00:01): Free BBC Resources for Your Classroom. Episode 964. For Fab Idea Friday.

Today we talk about all kinds of free BBC storytelling with lesson plans built by a former teacher.

Number one, check out Bluey — 15 free lessons on friendship, feeling, and reading body language.

Two, every video has leveled articles. Same article, three reading levels.

Three, check out their amazing interactive field trips — Walking with Dinosaurs, Planet Earth Passport, and more.

Announcer (00:35): This is the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast with your host, Vicki Davis.

Vicki Davis (00:39): Today’s show is sponsored by the BBC Learning Hub — a free library of ad-free BBC videos and ready-to-teach lesson plans for pre-K through twelfth grade. Stay tuned at the end of the show to learn more.

Vicki Davis (00:53): Our next guest, Kimmie Fink, spent 13 years teaching. She was named Puget Sound Teacher of the Year, and now she’s Senior Editor at the BBC Learning Hub. She helps bring BBC’s world-class storytelling — from Planet Earth to Walking with Dinosaurs — to everyday classrooms with free, ready-to-use resources.

So we’re at ISTE 2026. First of all, these resources are free. As you’re pulling together content, what did you start, like, looking at to design the content to bring it to classrooms?

Kimmie Fink (01:23): Yeah, you know, I think for me, getting to work for the BBC is kind of a dream, because there’s so much amazing content out there. And you know that it’s trusted, that it’s accurate, that it’s well produced. And I know how much my students enjoyed, in particular, engaging with video — and how hard it was to find quality video, especially on YouTube. It’s full of ads, right?

And so having something that is just safe for my students to watch and that I know is of great quality. We’ve looked through this massive library of BBC content and looked for things that we know are going to be engaging to students. Also my experience as a mom. I see things like the racer snakes chasing the baby iguanas, and I’m thinking, oh, my eight-year-old is going to eat that up. I know that all kids will, because that content is so engaging.

We’re looking to provide supplemental resources for teachers that are just ready to go, like out of the box. So you don’t have to do so much. I also knew that as a teacher, I had my curriculum that I was teaching. I was really looking for things to supplement and to make the experience come to life. So the idea that we have this home for that where you can come is just really appealing to me.

Vicki Davis (02:36): When I was at your booth, you had the videos and you have like lesson plans and you can download it. So like describe: if a teacher wanted to use stuff tomorrow, what would be the kinds of things he or she could expect to be able to get from your site?

Kimmie Fink (02:50): Gosh, it’s hard to know where to start. But for ELA, we have these wonderful articles that are pulled from BBC magazines like Science Focus, History Extra, and Discover Wildlife. And what we’ve done is we’ve leveled them. So it’s the same article, but it’s written at a grade three through five, grade six through eight, grade nine through 12. So your students can access it at whatever level. And we know that in every classroom, just because it’s labeled a fifth grade classroom doesn’t mean everybody’s reading at a fifth grade level, right? But they’re able to access that at any level.

There’s vocabulary built into that. Every single one of our videos has a writing prompt attached to it. So you just pick something you think that your kids are going to be super interested in. Maybe it’s polar bear cubs. And there’s a writing prompt that goes with it. So that’s where I would start with ELA.

With science — Walking with Dinosaurs came out in 1999. And they came out with a completely new version last year. And we got our hands on it first, which was so exciting. It follows six different dinosaurs. You go back and forth in the episode between the dig site and then the CGI dinosaurs. What I did is I went through it. I got to watch all the episodes and then pick out the learning moments. I paired a dig site clip with the CGI clip of the actual dinosaur. Then we created a paleontologist field journal. And then we made an interactive map. So students get this interactive map and you can visit in any order the dig sites. And you watch each of these videos and you take a quiz on it and you fill out your paleontologist field journal.

But there’s some extra fun content in there like, what dinosaur are you? Because obviously you need to do a personality quiz to figure out what kind of dinosaur you are. I’m a Lusotitan.

Vicki Davis (04:22): Oh, I don’t even know what that is.

Kimmie Fink (04:24): It is a massive, massive dinosaur.

But for me, I mean, just having students make that connection and almost kind of put themselves in that role of paleontologist. Because you look and they’re showing you the Spinosaurus’ tail. And then we’re asking you to make some predictions about what do you think that meant about it. And then you watch it and you realize that the Spinosaurus was aquatic. So there’s this real kind of like role playing and figuring things out as you go. And I just think that’s such an exciting experience for kids.

Vicki Davis (04:53): So a teacher can just go and download all this, have all this posted in their learning management system, and then their kids can be paleontologists and basically go on. Now, how long would it take to do the virtual field trip? Is that something that like teachers do, say, hey, one day a week for six weeks — or what’s the time span for it?

Kimmie Fink (05:12): I think that we estimated it was sort of like a 45-minute to 60-minute exploration for the students themselves. But we also have this full teacher guide, so you can do it as part of a larger unit. But something that I felt like as a teacher I needed was, I need to be able to take the piece that I want and not have to do the whole thing — because it’s just like, well, I got to print this and then I got to download this, and it’s too much. So, like, maybe you just want to watch the baby Triceratops video. You can do that. You can watch that individually.

It’s really like, take what you need. So everything is not like a massive production. But you want to do the whole thing, you can do the whole thing.

Vicki Davis (05:46): They’re free.

Kimmie Fink (05:47): It’s really fun. Yeah. It’s a really fun job.

Vicki Davis (05:49): You don’t have — like you said, you don’t have to worry about the ads and all the stuff that happens when we do YouTube content, because there are things that happen. So we’ve talked Walking with Dinosaurs. What are some of the other stories that kids love, that are some of your most popular, that teachers are just like, oh yeah, this is great for my classroom?

Kimmie Fink (06:08): We are so thrilled to be the home to the only licensed learning materials for Bluey. Bluey has such a massive footprint here with kids. I mean, we’ve been here at ISTE and everybody is coming to our booth. There’s been so much engagement. And the way the show is written, it’s just such a natural, you know, way to promote those life skills — you know, friendship and feelings and things like that. And doing it, meeting kids where they’re at.

Vicki Davis (06:32): Body language.

Kimmie Fink (06:34): Oh gosh, huge. Recognizing emotions, right? All of that stuff. Which can be tough.

Vicki Davis (06:39): There is something called a nonverbal learning disability, which is a struggle, and a lot of kids have them. And learning to read that body language is just vital to help kids.

Kimmie Fink (06:49): So we’ve got 15 lessons. They’re all free.

Vicki Davis (06:51): They had two little books. They’re very cute. Because I was looking at them. And you can print them in color or black and white — either way — but they’re really nice.

Kimmie Fink (06:59): So that’s been really popular. One of my other favorite experiences has to do with Planet Earth. I mean, if anybody who knows Sir David Attenborough — I mean, he’s a British national treasure. Is just incredible. He just celebrated his 100th birthday. And I mean, we have so much content from him.

And then we did a collection of the eight most popular Planet Earth videos. And we made a little Planet Earth passport so that kids can go through and watch, you know, the clip on lemurs in Madagascar and then go in their passport and fill out, you know, answer questions and illustrate it and just kind of explore on their own. So that’s been a really popular one as well.

Vicki Davis (07:35): So it sounds like the virtual field trips are really popular with teachers.

Kimmie Fink (07:38): Yeah, that’s really where we’re going — is to create more interactive experiences for kids, because I think it’s really important, that student-facing piece, and they can explore on their own. And it really mirrors the way that they’re consuming content outside of an educational setting.

Vicki Davis (07:53): Well, think about it. You could go to a dig, but archaeological digs are not usually the most exciting places. You can’t guarantee that they’re going to find something on the day you’re there. Otherwise, it’s just going to be dirt, right?

Kimmie Fink (08:03): Right. Yes.

Vicki Davis (08:04): So this way you can actually go on a field trip that you’d expect. It’s going to be consistent and do some cool things. And all that material is there. Y’all have a booth here at ISTE, but it has been hopping. Largely because of Bluey, but also the other stuff.

Kimmie Fink (08:17): I think Bluey draws people in. And then we say, here’s everything else that we have. And people kind of go, wow. And somebody asked me, she said, so is there a free version in addition to a paid version? And I said, no — there’s only free.

Vicki Davis (08:32): Really? I know it.

Kimmie Fink (08:34): Yeah, so it’s great.

Vicki Davis (08:35): It’s free and it’s wonderful. You have seen this from both sides of the desk. Describe a time that something really changed in your classroom because you had the right piece of media.

Kimmie Fink (08:46): We had a reading anthology for our ELA program, as a lot of people do, and it could be a little dry. It was about chimpanzees. And we were engaging with it and it was fine. But I had found some videos of Jane Goodall in the Gombe with the chimpanzees. And I just felt like it made that connection for my kids, because they could actually see this person.

We think about, when we’re reading about chimpanzees, and of course the goal is, you know, comprehension and things like that. But I also want kids to care about conservation and things like that. We talked about storytelling, and I feel like it’s the way that we access experiences that we don’t have firsthand knowledge of. Really high-quality video can do that often. And I don’t think it takes away from getting the information as a reader. I think it amplifies it.

Vicki Davis (09:35): When you talk to teachers and when you’re talking to them at the booth, what are they most excited about? Besides Bluey, obviously.

Kimmie Fink (09:41): I’ve had a lot of excitement around our newsroom. So I think that a lot of people hear BBC and they think news, right? Because, of course, BBC News is quite well known. And we have just launched our newsroom, and we have a daily Newsbite. And so you come in every day, every school day. We have a new one. It’s like a five minute clip. It’s about, you know, some kind of relevant news story. And then there’s questions that go along with it.

People were really excited about it because, again, there’s so much on there. And you were asking, like, where can I start? That’s a great place to start. It’s like, this is a great way to, like, start my day. And we know that media literacy is so important right now and, you know, quite frankly, really lacking. And so that’s been something that teachers have been really excited about as well.

And then we are planning on, as we move into back to school, really gamifying that more. We really want to give teachers that. I mean, I’d play all the New York Times games, you know — like, give them that Wordle experience where they can see how they’re doing compared to other classrooms and they can maybe have a streak or something like that. So that’s coming as well. So we’re getting some good feedback on that.

Vicki Davis (10:44): So if a teacher says, okay, I want to try out these resources — where do they start for what they could use right away?

Kimmie Fink (10:52): Yeah, I mean, I think the Newsbites is something that can be used right away. I would also recommend just go to our homepage. We have a new top nav that we just launched. And I think it does a really good job of showing the breadth of what’s available. So you can go in and there’s science and environment right at the top. There’s social studies, global, international kind of content. And then we have other topics where you can explore, like what we have for like SEL, math and ELA, which we are still building out. But I think that’s a good place.

And we are always updating. So every month, I’ll put something that fits. Like we have an article on the 4th of July and the history behind that. And so if you go to each of those places, we’ll have things that are like germane to whatever time of year it is. And I think that could be a nice entry point as well, right? So you’re coming in in October, you’re going to see some videos on bats because it’s, you know, Halloween is coming. Or you’re going to see a Bluey worksheet that’s on Halloween. So we definitely try to have content that’s relevant to the time.

Vicki Davis (11:47): Okay. Now you said math.

Kimmie Fink (11:49): Yeah, I did.

Vicki Davis (11:50): So could you give me at least one example for math? Because a lot of times people don’t think of math as having great videos, but there are some out there.

Kimmie Fink (11:58): So what we have for math are currently — so we have the Numberblocks. So there’s Numberblocks and Alphablocks, are shows that are distributed by the BBC. And we have licensed a lot of their magazine content as printables. So we have a lot of math printables that you can use. But the video is coming, and it will be more like a kind of like explainer videos.

Vicki Davis (12:19): Oh, that’s awesome. Okay, so as we’re finishing up — what kind of guides the content that you select?

Kimmie Fink (12:25): So we have developed our global knowledge framework, and there’s really five pillars to it of things that guide our — you were asking before about how I make selections, right? So I’m looking at these things. And the first one is media literacy. And then second, we have sustainability and environment, which, of course, makes a lot of sense with what the BBC produces. We have global citizenship — so, you know, knowing more about the world, cultural awareness, cultural relevance — and then financial literacy and digital literacy as well.

We have a mailing list that you can sign up. When you go to the website, you can view all of our videos. You don’t have to be signed in or anything like that. In order to download like a printable or something like that, you’re going to go ahead and log in. It’s really easy. It just takes a few minutes and it’s free. And then when you are logged in, you can do things like create your own playlists. So we have curated playlists — like we have a great penguin playlist. But if you want to do your own and then assign it to students via Google Classroom, you can do all that once you’re logged in and download all the printables that you want. Print them off. Copy them. You’re good to go.

Vicki Davis (13:25): We’ve been talking with Kimmie from the BBC Learning Hub. Thanks for coming on.

Kimmie Fink (13:29): Thank you so much for having me.

Vicki Davis (13:30): The BBC Learning Hub is a free story-driven platform from BBC Studios with more than a thousand classroom resources. You get ad-free video clips from BBC storytelling that teachers and students already love, paired with standards-aligned lesson plans, leveled reading passages, comprehension questions, and printable activities. And you can send it all straight to Google Classroom. They work for pre-K all the way through high school, and every bit of it is free.

This is exactly the kind of high-quality, teacher-ready content I love sharing with you. Real BBC storytelling that makes the lesson come alive without adding to your prep. Build your first playlist at coolcatteacher.com forward slash BBC. Start with Walking with Dinosaurs or the amazing Bluey content for your younger students. That’s coolcatteacher.com forward slash BBC.

Vicki Davis (14:30): Thanks for tuning in to the 10 Minute Teacher Podcast. Watch the video version of this podcast and catch my new radio and TV show, Cool Cat Teacher Talk, on YouTube and a radio or TV station near you. Join my Cool Cat Teacher Classroom Matters newsletter at coolcatteacher.com forward slash newsletter. Leave a review if you found this helpful. See you later, educator.