Lessons and Ideas

Many teachers can remember 9/11. For an adult, this event can rest squarely in history, but also close enough that memories can spring back. Many of our students were not alive in 2001, and if they were, they might be too young to remember where they were when they heard the news. As Americans collectively deal with the strangeness and sadness of 9/11, commemorating the day poses an even stranger disconnect between students and teachers. Seniors in high school were only 1 or 2 years old on the day of the attacks. Middle and elementary school students will likely have no recollection. So in…

If there were ever a day to ask yourself, "Why oh why did I not study Filipino?" today would be it. We were wowed by this clip of the Philippine Educational Theater Association's new Shakespeare rap musical, "William"--and we didn't understand a word of it. The goal of the musical is to make Shakespeare accessible to young people by putting the Bard to a hip-hop beat. Sound familiar? As one young actress said in the clip, the group wants to promote "Shakespeare, not Shakes-fear." The group's reasons for creating "William" were the same reasons we created Shakespeare is Hip-Hop. Teachers…

Let's take it back to the future this Wordplay Wednesday... "I’m so ahead of my time my parents haven’t met yet!" - Big L Now it's time for you to show off your trendsetting, time-travelling skills. Finish this line in the comments: "I'm so ahead of my time _________________."

Here at the Flocab HQ in Brooklyn, we got a little bit shaken up during Tuesday's earthquake. An earthquake is a surprising thing around these parts! But if we'd been dutifully checking our Twitter feed, we could have learned about the quake before it even rattled the Brooklyn Bridge. Turns out: Twitter travels faster than seismic waves. According to this article, it would have been possible for us to read about the earthquake in New York a good minute before we felt it. If you read about the news before it actually happens, does that make you a time traveller?…

Wednesday is a special day for Flocabulary. Each Wednesday, we celebrate our favorite witty classroom-appropriate lines from the hip-hop world and literature, and then we prompt everyone to try their hand at writing some wordplay. So to celebrate those of you heading back to school, here's today's official Wordplay Wednesday: "Either you're gonna whine or you climb; I chose the latter" -J. Cole Today's mission? Leave a comment with motivational wordplay for all the kids starting school this week. GO! And if you use Twitter, share your best lines with the hashtag #WordplayWednesday