Chatboard Poll: What's Your

Favorite Mnemonic?
Teachers.Net asked readers: We all remember memory
tricks, rhymes and expressions taught to us to help
remember grammar rules, spelling, order in a series, and
so forth. For example, I will always remember a teacher
stating "Emma the dilemma" to help drill in the spelling for
this small but elusive word. Which learning mnemonics
stand out in your mind, and which do you use in your
classroom today?
Mim:
for order of operations:
the word PEMDAS or
Please (parentheses)
Excuse (exponents)
My (multiplication)
Dear (division) (x and in order from left to right) Aunt
(addition)
Sally (subtraction) (+ and - in order from left to right)
For the solar system:
My (Mercury) * to remember Mercury is first look at the
first and last letters M__y=my
Very (Venus)
Educated (Earth)
Mother (Mars)
Just (Jupiter)
Served (Saturn)
Us (Uranus)
Nine (Neptune)
Pizzas (Pluto)

Christy/IL:
(From Mim's example for the solar system) I substitute
excellent for educated and pickles for pizzas.
My other one is for the division algorithm:
Does (divide)
McDonald's (multiply)
Serve (subtract)
Cheese- (compare)
Burgers (bring down)

Barb E. / MI:
The Great Lakes = HOMES (Huron, Ontario, Michigan,
Erie, Superior)
lines on the music staff = Every Good Boy Does Fine (or
Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge) - EGBDF

Jan:
In my workshops when teaching about memory and the use
of mnemonics, I give the example of "righty tighty, lefty
loosy" as a device for remembering which way to tighten or
loosen a light globe, screw or anything that else that turns. I
know it is a good one because after a few months the
ONLY thing participants remember from that workshop is
the mnemonic.
They remember nothing about memory itself but say the
mnemonic had changed their lives. The power of such
devices!
The ones I still use in my own life which I learned in school
are the "i before e" and the "30 days hath September" rules.
With these devices, I don't need to memorize all the
different applications. I had not heard your "Emma the
dilemma" trick before but will remember it. I am sick of
looking up "dilemma" in the dictionary. I'm glad to know,
however, that the spelling has given others trouble. Do you
happen to have a trick for spelling "disseminate" which I
had to look up, yet again, in posting this message?

Vicki/K:
GEOGRAPHY -- George Elliots oldest grandfather rode a
pig home yesterday! I learned that in elementary school..
almost 40 years ago.. and STILL replay it when I write the
word geography! :)))

GM:
Together, to-get-her

Sting:
In music the bass clef: All Cows Eat Grass