Group by group, fifth graders at Sulphur Springs Community School engaged in a rap battle about kindness, urging the audience to be “a negativity op,” which is slang for “opponent.”
Utilizing Flocabulary, a program to teach students concepts through music, teacher Ken Newton gave the students the assignment to prepare the raps all on their own.
The fifth graders, or “big friends,” performed their group project for their “little friends,” transitional kindergarten and kindergarten students the students interact with on a weekly basis, according to Newton.
“I’ve used Flocabulary.com for six, seven years. Great musical program in a variety of subjects. We happened to talk about kindness, and the kids, in turn, used their LyricLab (which is in Flocabulary), which they put in their own lyrics to create their kindness song,” Newton said. “They were given a choice of either using the musical riff in the program or using instrumental versions of popular songs that they’re accustomed to, with my approval, of course, and they did a great job.”
According to Newton, this class is creative, and allowing the students to channel their artistic visions is an essential part in the process of learning. This creativity was also shown through the posters about kindness displayed throughout the classroom, as well as the digital “Kindness Rap” graphic projected behind the students, which was designed by them through Canva.
If students weren’t comfortable performing, they had the opportunity to become a dancer or take a role that’s geared more behind the scenes.
“I think it’s important to let kids be creative at this age, to allow them to use their creative juices and their creativity to allow them to have fun in school,” Newton said. “I focus on kindness every year, and I like to think that we are focusing on it in a different, special way [each year].”
While songs are a great method to allow students to memorize concepts in a mnemonic way, Newton hopes that the students can empathize with the concepts, as well.
“As a teacher, you hope that the information stays with them, not only in their head, but their heart as well. I want people to know that [people] should allow kids to be creative, to allow them to shine in a way that allows them to believe that they’re fantastic, artsy young people,” Newton said. “You should do something that makes you break away from the pack. Anything to get kids excited about school, I’m all for it. Whatever it takes.”
Students Francis Osorio, 11, and twins Calvin and Connor Shoemake, 11, discussed how fun it was to work with their groups:
“It was very fun constructing the song and figuring out what we wanted to do, what song or instrumental we wanted, what rhymes we wanted to put into the song. It was very scary at first, but also very exciting to see our buddies watching us do the song. It was very nice,” Osorio said.
“Me and my friend worked on it. He’s very big on music, so we used RhymeZone, and then we made it like a poem-ish rap, so it rhymes with it. So that’s how we made ours,” Connor said.
“[Both of my group members] came from different countries and like different music, but we all agreed on one. I made the lyrics and stuff to rhyme with the song,” Calvin said.
