If you know what a conjunction is or how a bill becomes a law because of School House Rock, you may really appreciate educational technology company, Flocabulary. They’re teaching vocabulary, language arts, social studies, science and math through what they call educational hip hop.

When we first heard about it we wondered how good the rap songs could actually be, is it Sesame Street 2.0? Are we talking about a bunch of just silly songs?

While the songs are pretty silly, Flocabulary uses real rappers and writers to come up with their music that’s teaching kids in grades K-12. They’re also based in Brooklyn, an epicenter for east coast hip hop and some of the hip hop songs reflect just that. Aliza tells us that they also have a studio in Atlanta and the hip hop songs coming out of there naturally have a dirty south feel to them.

But outside of the hip hop, Flocabulary is using a proven multi-sensory approach of using music, rhythm and rhyme backed by research from the Word Up Project , by Roger Farr Ed.D., Jenny Cooper, Ph.D and the Educational Research Institute of America. Dr. Roger Farr, former president of the International Reading Association, conducted a study in 2008 and 2009 which determined that The Word Up Project, Flocabulary’s multisensory vocabulary program, raised state test scores for middle school students. A total of 1255 students participated in the study in six states.

Flocabulary, an online learning companion, helps teachers and educators meet Common Core objectives in ELA and math. But it’s not limited to just reading and math they also offer science, social studies and current events in a series called “The Week In Rap”. Flocabulary is designed to fit anywhere in a teacher’s curriculum that they want to use it.