Flocabulary: Much More than Just a Song!

I am always amazed when I talk with social studies teachers who have never heard of Flocabulary. Flocabulary creates hip-hop music and materials to supplement your curriculum. The first time I ever played a US history Flocabulary song my college roommate came in dancing…. little did she know it was about “who discovered it” related to Christopher Columbus. I use everyone of the US history songs as a unit preview. I actually made a powerpoint of images and typed the lyrics to go along with the Flocabulary songs. Through the rap songs we discuss key vocabulary and concepts we will learn with the upcoming unit. Even though Flocabulary is no longer free, it is well worth the money to subscribe to its wonderful features!

 

Another reason I love to use Flocabulary in the classroom is the Week in Rap. Every week on Friday mornings, Flocabulary puts together the week’s biggest or most interesting current event stories into a rap music video. The week in rap discusses the hottest topics of the week, such as the Travon Martin case, the oil spill, crisis in Syria to name a few. My 8th grade students in White Plains, NY loved the Week in Rap. They actually asked to watch it every week. I was even surprised that after spring break, they asked if they could watch it from the week before!

 

The best part about the week in rap is not just the music, even though it is good, they love discussing the current events. Yes, you read that right! They love discussing the current events. After I play the week in rap, I ask them if there is anything they want to discuss. Around 18  hands in my classroom instantaneously shoot up. I am often not leading the discussion, but facilitating it. Students respond by saying “oh I heard that on the news,” “my mom was talking about that” “I heard….” The discussions that come from the 3 minute Week in Rap is one of the reasons I became a teacher.

 

Another awesome feature of the Week in Rap, is that they make the past 18 years in rap for recent high school grads. I always show it at the end of the year, but I also show it at the beginning of the year and introduce the concept: what is history? My students are always impressed with how much history they lived through after watching the past 18 years in rap. It is a great beginning of the school year activity to start the discussion what is history and how we are apart of it.

The Last 18 Years In Rap from Flocabulary on Vimeo.

 

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3 Comments
  1. I am checking out this flocabulary right now to see if I can afford it. 🙂

    I will be teaching 5/6 grade American history for the first time this year and need all of the ideas I can get!

    Could you add an email subscription button to your blog so I can follow you that way?

    Shannon
    http://www.irunreadteach.wordpress.com

  2. You will love it. If you just use us history you can buy one book and cd for 20 dollars. Very affordable no need to get subscription even though I love week in rap which I pay for.

    Good idea I will add email tomorrow. Can’t do it from my phone. Thanks

  3. I totally agree that Flocabulary is awesome and should have its role in the classroom! I am a brand new fan of Flocabulary and have told many of the teachers I work with about this awesome website! I recently used the “Week in Rap” video for October 12 and October 19 with my Current Events class. After being accused of trying to relate to my students, my students got down to business dissecting the videos’ current event topics. There were many that they had heard about, but there were still more that we looked up to learn more about. The “Challenge” that accompanies each video is awesome as the students pay closer attention to the events being described instead of ripping apart the skill of the artists. We had excellent discussions and this is from a class that tunes out unless the topic is sports or something to argue about. The money is well worth it, especially for those of us who find ourselves covering a variety of subject areas. I recently showed one of my students the election video as he was preparing for the Constitution test. He was so inspired that he wrote his own rap! He go so into it that he went above and beyond the assignment. I am definitely looking forward to using this website as a lesson supplement as my career takes off (hopefully!). Thank you for sharing about this website!

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