Smart Shorties
Hip Hop Multiplication
Featuring music inspired from songs by such chart topping artists as Chris Brown, T-Pain, and Soulja Boy
CD’s and Workbooks Available Now Online at www.smartshorties.com or Toll Free at (800) 459-6856
Melding the worlds of Hip Hop and R&B into an innovative collection of hook laden tunes and hip graphics, Spark The Mind presents Smart Shorties, a Hip Hop ode to the classic “School House Rock” series.
Smart Shorties is a new student-tested, standards-based educational resource offering CD’s, workbooks, and DVD’s relevant to today’s youth. The Smart Shorties brand was developed to give teachers a more updated and culturally-relevant educational tool that students would enjoy learning with. Parent-friendly, the materials can also be utilized as a home-school connection resource.
Spark The Mind’s debut product, Smart Shorties Hip Hop Multiplication, was designed to be a high-interest student-friendly learning tool to help students master multiplication facts and access higher math curriculum. This versatile educational resource can be used whole group, strategic grouping or with individual students.
The 13-track CD, produced by Spark The Mind co-founder, Alex Nesmith, an authentic Hip Hop producer known for producing hit records for artists ranging from Outkast to Akon, features a different multiplication factor from 0 to 12. Smart Shorties music is instantly engaging as Spark The Mind licensed the actual back beats of chart-topping radio hits by some of today's most popular artists, a key differentiator from other unpalatable lessons through music marketed as Hip Hop. The lyrics were written and songs performed by students who were chosen after successfully learning their multiplication facts.
In addition to the standard CD, Spark The Mind has produced a dual disc enhanced Teacher Edition CD. An extended version of the standard multiplication CD, the Teacher Edition includes an additional song for each recording that is just the math facts isolated for educators use as well as has an instrumental version for students to practice their facts from memory. There are also other high-interest extras included.
As a companion to the CD’s, a vibrant full-color Student Workbook and Teacher Answer Key present practice exercises of lessons introduced within song lyrics on the CD’s. In addition to its innovative approaches to instruction, the Student Workbook is full of fun, modern graphic images designed to attract and retain student’s attention while providing valuable multiplication practice.
Teaching with Smart Shorties is not only a fun departure from mundane instruction, but increased test scores have shown that it is also effective in improving student achievement. By pairing popular music with National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) standards-based curriculum, Smart Shorties Hip Hop Multiplication series can assert to proven results.
In response to her students’ failing scores on the State Achievement Test for math, Spark The Mind’s co-founder, Christine Smith, sought alternative resources for teaching mathematics to her sixth-grade students. By employing early versions of Smart Shorties Hip Hop Multiplication, Smith’s students’ math scores on the Ohio achievement Test increased from 0 percent passing in 2004-05 to an impressive 48 percent passing in 2005-06. As a result, Smith and her sixth-grade students were recognized as 2006 Most Improved Scantron Math Scores by the Ohio Council of Schools.
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