I stumbled upon this book Thirty Days Has September – Cool Ways to Remember Stuff, a few years back and just loved some of the little mnemonic devices (A mnemonic device is any learning technique that aids information retention. Mnemonics aim to translate information into a form that the human brain can retain better than its original form). This book contains things like rhymes and acrostics for remembering things. From English to Science, Math, History and Music, this little book has many devices for remembering tricky little facts. I would like to share with you 10 of my favorites from this book.
1. From the title alone, most of us are familiar with the poem to help remember how many days are in each month:
Thirty days has September,
April, June, and November.
All the rest have thirty-one
Excepting February alone,
And that has twenty-eight days clear,
With twenty-nine in each leap year.
2 & 3. There are many words in the English language that have the same sound but a different meaning, these are called homophones. Here are two of my favorites:
Accept/Except – When you accept a gift, you can remember it is spelled with the letters ac because you acquire something new. That’s great except the gift make you X (cross)! Sya this sentence to remind yourself: I will accept anything, except excuses!
Affect/Effect – Affect is an action word (a verb). You should use it to say that something makes a difference. For example: The weather always affects the sailors’ ability. Effect is usually an object word (a noun) and is the result of something. For example: The effect of the weather was terrible.
So Remember: To affect something alters it,
But the effect is the end result.
4. Living where we do the Great Lakes are a geographical reality for us. We will often remeber 3 or 4 and then forget the others. a great acronym to get you started with the first letters for each Great Lake is:
5. Since the removal of Pluto as a planet, the mnemonic that I learned as a child no longer applies. Here is a new one that doesn’t include Pluto:
My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Noodles.
Mercury Venus Earth Mars Jupiter Saturn Uranus Neptune
6-8. Mean, Median and Mode are so easy to confuse. Mean is done by adding all numbers in the group together and then dividing by that by how many numbers there were. Median, meaning middle, is leterally the middles number in orger from lowest to highest. Mode is the number that appears most often.
To remember all three try this:
Mean means average numbers.
Median is the medium number.
Mode occurs most often.
9 & 10. Multiplying Positive(+) and Negative(-) Numbers. When you have to multiply positive and negative numbers together, just imagine that the positive numbers are heroes and the negative numbers are villains:
If a good thing (+) happens to a hero (+), that’s good (+): 12 x 12 =144
If a good thing (+) happens to a villain (-), that’s bad (-): 12 x -12 = -144
If a bad thing (-) happens to a hero (+), that’s bad (-): -12 x 12 = -144
If a bad thing (-) happens to a villain (-), that’s good (+): -12 x -12 = 144
The Big Book of Homeschooling
To get tons of great advice, and move beyond the basics of academics, pick up a copy of The Big Book of Homeschool Ideas. Some topics included are things like active learning, learning with video games, helping teens/tween become independent learners (one of my chapters), teaching on the road, learning with movies, high school literature (one of my chapters), and gardening.
This book can carry you through all your years of homeschooling, covering the stages your children will mature through: preschoolers, elementary grades, middle school, and high school. As your life situation changes, you will find new chapters that apply to you. You can view the full table of contents to see all 103 topics!
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