Flocabulary’s Order of Operations song is one way to teach math literacy.

When students sit down for their high-stakes math test and open up their standardized testing packet, they won’t be staring at a list of numbers that they need to robotically compute. They be seeing 100 multiplication problems to rattle off answers for. To succeed on math tests, they need to read. Students need math literacy.

Math literacy traditionally refers to the ability to apply math skills to real-world situations: paying a tip, paying taxes, trying to pay as little as possible for a phone plan. Notice a trend? You will literally pay for…

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Teach Figurative Language with Flocabulary

Check out the lyrics and more.

Listen to Flocabulary’s Figurative Language song. You’ll learn all about irony, metaphor and more.

Articulating a simple irony definition can be daunting. It’s a large concept, but irony can be broken down into three central categories. We’ll define each of these three main types of irony, and provide examples from plays, short stories, essays and poems.

IRONY

Definition: There are three types of irony: verbal, situational and dramatic.

Verbal irony occurs when a speaker’s intention is the opposite of what he or she is saying. For example, a character stepping out into a hurricane and saying, “What…

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Amanda teaches at Boiling Springs Middle School in South Carolina, and she was sweet enough to share some of her students’ amazing and creative raps. They were all awesome, but here are some of our favorite excerpts:

Tone is the attitude about the subject.
Let me interject that tone can also affect the mood,
which will affect the audience attitude. 

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Connotation, denotation, personification are the poetic elements that are sweeping the nation. Oh, don’t you forget that in the equation.

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Refrain is similar to the chorus of a song.
Repeat after every stanza and sing along.
The purpose is to get into your head.
If…

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Every week we have a new Week in Rap Shout Out Contest, and our favorite submission wins a shout out for their school. This week we asked you to write a rap describing what has happened on the month and day of your birthday throughout history. Our winning entry comes from Highland Park Middle School in Highland Park, New Jersey. Zeyue’s birthday, November 11, has been very eventful over the years!

November 11, my birthday
A load of history on this day
In 1918, World War 1 ended
With a treaty in a railway car, how splendid
Germany was worn, with little power

…

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Every week we have a new Week in Rap Shout Out Contest, and our favorite submission wins a shout out for their school. This week we asked you to cover a new story that we didn’t cover last week – Flocab-style, complete with both a short rap and an info box. You all wowed us as always, writing raps that could give us a run for our money.

The winning entry comes from Potosi Middle School in Potosi, Wisconsin:

300 miles off the Florida Coast
Old rocket parts were underwater toast
They came off of Saturn V
Which kept Neil Armstrong alive

Amazon CEO Jeff

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Teach Figurative Language with Flocabulary

Check out the lyrics and more.

Listen to Flocabulary’s Figurative Language song. You’ll learn all about juxtaposition, metaphor and more.

Looking to learn more about juxtaposition in poetry? Look no further! Today we’ll unpack juxtaposition: how to define it, why it’s used, and some examples of where to spot it.

JUXAPOSITION

Definition: Two unlike ideas are placed side by side.

Why Writers Use It: By placing two words or ideas next to one another, we can highlight the differences between them. Juxtaposition can be used on a small scale (like between words or images) or on a large scale (like…

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From time to time, and to our great delight, we receive excited emails from Flocab teachers all over the country. They are teachers who love Flocabulary so much, they just can’t keep it to themselves. And far better than making us feel warm and fuzzy inside (which isn’t so bad…), these teachers are impacting students in amazing ways. So we wanted to share their ideas with the entire community and help everyone use Flocabulary in more empowering ways!

Leah, a teacher from Brunswick, GA, wrote us earlier this month, and kindly agreed to let us share her experience. Here is what she had to say about Flocabulary:

I am a

…

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Here at Flocab HQ, we’ve been doing some spring cleaning. And lo and behold, we have discovered some gems among the dust and cobwebs! They are letters written by some Flocab students in 2010, voicing their concerns that there were not enough Flocab social studies videos to get them through their 7th grade history classes. We listened, and our Modern World History units were born. But we still enjoy reading these impassioned pleas from our most valued audience, and we think you will too.

Are you and your students pining for more Flocab jams? Send your adorable mail to:
Flocabulary
55 Washington St., Suite 259
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Every week we have a new Week in Rap Shout Out Contest, and our favorite submission wins a shout out for their school. This week we asked you to dream up a Flocabulary superhero, complete with backstory and an illustration. You all came up with so many inventive ideas for super powers, origin stories, and costumes, and we loved reading your entries. Our winning submission comes from Bates Middle School in Annapolis, Maryland, where Olivia dreamed up…The Brain.

The Brain sounds unbeatable!

Another fantastic entry came from G.R. Whitfield School in Grimesland, North Carolina. Flo-Man gets amazing grades after a group of kids pushed him into a…

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Every week we have a new Week in Rap Shout Out Contest and give a shout-out to the winner on Friday. This week, we asked you to respond to a Week in Rap news story from the point of view of a historical figure. As always, your entries were incredibly creative, commenting on the news as everyone from George Washington to Martin Luther King, Jr. to King Tutankhamun. It was amazing to see our present news through so many perspectives!

The win goes to Southeast Middle School in Greensboro, NC. They submitted several excellent entries; these are a few of our favorites.

Lost, but not gone; our dear

…

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