Lessons and Ideas Archives

November 24, 2009
Flocabulary Team

Rhyme ‘n Learn

Joe Ocando was teaching middle school in Washington Heights NYC as part of the Teach For America program when he thought of starting Rhyme n' Learn. Inspired by Flocabulary, and "particularly concerned with the low numbers of US citizens in graduate STEM programs," Joe began creating math and science raps. Citing research results from the Teacher's College at Columbia University, Joe continues to create high-interest "edu-raps," and bolstering what more and more people already know: hip-hop in the classroom works!

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November 2, 2009
Flocabulary Team

Straight out of the classroom: Teachers and students submit (awesome) academic raps

Welcome to November, Hip-Hop Classroom. We had to post these raps - fresh in from Loudon, VA and Cheshire, CT. First, we have a truly top-notch rap about the Vietnam War from Ms. Zecher in Sterlin, VA. The key content/vocabulary is even in bold, just like Flocabulary. Fantastic work Jen Zecher - let's get this on wax! Up next, 5th graders from Doolittle School in Cheshire, CT created a rap about science of sound concepts. We love it! Here's what teacher Tracy Ajello wrote when she submitted the rhymes: "Hi, my fifth graders wrote this rap to teach about grade…

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October 20, 2009
blake

4 Questions for Spectac: The Rapping Principal

“First Capture Their Hearts, and Their Minds Will Follow” Does the principal of your school moonlight as a rapper? Does he or she win Principal of the Year awards during the day and then collaborate with Grammy award-winning producers at night. Meet Mervin “Spectac” Jenkins, a former middle school principal in Pittsboro, North Carolina. Flocabulary has worked with Spectac on a variety of projects including Shakespeare is Hip-Hop and The Hip-Hop History of the World. We recently put Spec through our 4 question interview. 1. You've been both a working emcee and a middle school principal. Did you ever see…

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June 17, 2009
Flocabulary Team

Lesson Plan: Writing Academic Raps

* How To Write Vocabulary Rhymes * Many students say that memorizing vocabulary words is a struggle, so we designed a simple lesson plan to help students learn, master and retain difficult vocabulary by writing a rhyme. This exercise can be done while a beat is playing (free beats are available here) or without music. Step 1. Choose Your Vocab Word and Pre-teach In this case, let’s use the word vain – an SAT-level vocabulary word that students might have to grapple with as early as middle school. A. Teach the word and the definition: Vain (adj.) too proud, into…

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April 23, 2009
Flocabulary Team

The Hip-Hop Game of Skillz

That's right: A hip-hop board game that educates players about the history of the genre and the culture intertwined with it, connects "rap culture slang" to standard English, and more. Learn more about this innovative and engaging (and educational) game here. How did we find out about this? Folks connected to the Hip-Hop Skillz creators reached out to us! Here's what Shon wrote: "I enjoyed looking at all the work other educators are doing to use hip-hop as an engaging tool to embrace youth culture and get them involved more actively in the learning process. I noticed you did not…

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