Rap, Hip Hop, Vocabulary, History and More… Word up!

Ever since I met the two founders of Flocabulary (Blake and Alex) in 2007, I’ve been a huge fan of the guys, their company and their mission.

Flocabulary helps teachers use hip hop and rap music to teach their students ELA, social studies. math and science. The Flocabulary site states:

The idea for Flocabulary first came to founder/lyricist Blake Harrison in high school. A good student who still struggled to memorize facts for tests, he wondered why it was so easy to remember lines to his favorite rap songs but so difficult to memorize academic information. Blake realized that if a rapper released an album that defined SAT vocab words, students would have a fun and effective way to study for the SAT…

Curious? Take a look at the video above and make sure to visit Flocabulary’s website after!

Word Up!

Anna

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Bringing the White House to your Literacy Classroom

With a new president in the Oval Office and lots of attention on Barack Obama’s new agenda in the news, this is an opportune time to bring bits of history and social studies into your literacy block! The new White House home page is a true gem when it comes to user-friendliness and information. The White House 101 page is a particularly good resource for White House history and factoids. For example, did you know that:

• Before he became president, Lyndon Johnson was a teacher at a small school in South Texas.
• In 1915, Woodrow Wilson became the first President to attend the World Series, where he and his fiance, Edith Gault, made their first public appearance since announcing their engagement. The President insisted on paying for his own tickets.
• The Kennedy children had a pony named “Macaroni.”

When your students bring up current events in the classroom, make sure to recommend that they take a look at www.whitehouse.gov.

History, Social Studies, Current Events, Literacy, Technology and more!

Thank you White House technology staff for putting together an excellent classroom resource!

Anna

P.S. Thank you to journalist Chris Riedel and Timothy E. Wirth, Professor in Learning Technologies at Harvard University, for their kind words about Literacy is Priceless in their recent article, “The Evolution of Education: Empowering Learners to Think, Create, Share, and Do” in T.H.E. Journal.

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Integrating Themes from Science, Social Studies and More into your ELA Block

While exploring the Teaching Matters Top-Ten Resources page, I learned about Carol Hurst’s Children’s Literature site. My favorite part of the site is a section titled, Curriculum Areas. Carol writes, “The curriculum areas listed here each have one or more pages on this site with information such as: related children’s books, activities, related professional books and links to related sites on the internet.” The following is a sampling of some of the curriculum areas she features:

1) Appalachia

2) Flight and Planes

3) Fools and Tricksters

Carol’s list is super extensive! Whether you’re interested in doing a unit on quilts or buildings, Carol’s got a book and activity recommendation that is sure to make your students excited to read and explore!

Anna

Do your students like to Doodle?

My friend Millie just emailed me information on the Doodle for Google Competition:

Welcome to Doodle 4 Google, a competition where we invite K-12 students to play around with our homepage logo and see what they come up with. This year we’re inviting U.S. kids to join in the doodling fun, around the intriguing theme “What if…?”

For lessons plans and ideas on how to incorporate this competition into your art, technology literacy, language arts and social studies classes click here.

Happy Doodling!

Anna