Lessons and Ideas

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

To plan a good lesson, sometimes the devil's in the details. Well we've taken care of all of that for you, with this song and lesson plan to teach American idioms. The lesson is especially helpful for English Language Learners who often struggle with the cultural or non-literal meanings of idioms.