Hip hop + vocabulary = happy students!

If you haven't tried Flocabulary yet, give it a look. I found "Flocab," as I call it, last year while looking for something more rigorous and interesting for fifth grade vocabulary. It's a subscription service, but my class loved it so much, we're going to use it again this year.


The Word Up! project is the vocabulary section. It is broken into grade levels 2-8, and each grade level has 14 units. Each unit has a hip hop song and video to introduce the words. Using the content clues to determine the meaning of our new vocabulary words became one of my students' favorite parts of the Monday routine! There are also activities and quizzes for each week, if you choose to use them.

Flocab is not just for generic vocabulary, though. There are also subject area videos for ELA, Math, Science, & Social Studies. (We LOVED the story elements song "Five Things.") We all know that putting something to music helps students remember it, and they love Flocab's hip hop songs!

Another feature I try to use every Friday during our morning meeting is the "Week in Rap" video that recaps news events. If you teach younger grades, you'll want to preview this before watching it in class. They report the news, and sometimes it isn't pretty. :(

You can preview some of the videos on YouTube to get an idea of how much your kids will enjoy doing vocabulary this way.

FREEBIE time!

I made word wall cards this year for the fourth and fifth grade level words. Snag yours by clicking on the links below. They are pretty plain, but I did that to save on color ink, and I'm going to print them on colorful cardstock for my word wall. Enjoy!




Flocabulary 4th Grade Words

Flocabulary 5th Grade Words