When something that helps kids catches on, it’s a good thing. When something that helps kids turns into a phenomenon, all the better! Now “Smart Shorties Hip Hop Multiplication” is yielding a movie – set to go into production in July in Brooklyn. Smart Shorties creators Christine Smith and Alex Nesmith tell us they’re hoping some of the talents whose beats are used in their fun math tunes will cameo in the movie – names such as T-Pain and Rich Boy
Smith, a Toledo, Ohio schoolteacher when she started searching for a better way to get her 4th to 7th graders cued into math, joined forces with Atlanta, Ga., music producer Nesmith on the project just a couple of years ago. They knew they were onto something huge when their Twelve’s Tables song was featured on local news, then picked up by “Good Morning America” – and then the website Smith had set up for her students was suddenly inundated with “109,000 views, and people writing in, ‘How can we get this?’” she recalls. The requests came from as far as Australia.
Nesmith, who’s worked with a number of leading acts, sounds as if he’s found his calling with Smart Shorties, “a great new challenge for me. I fell in love with the kids right away.”
Smart Shorties (smartshorties.com) comic books, Spanish language raps and other projects are now also in the works – along with compilations of improved test scores for students learning with the songs.
