Do your kids struggle with remembering how many cups, pints and quarts there are in a gallon?

Here’s a memory tip for learning liquid measurement. As students draw the large G tell them this story: In the kingdom of Gallon there were 4 Queens (Q is for quarts. 4 quarts in a gallon), each queen had a Prince & Princess (P is for pints. 2 pints in a quart). Each Prince & Princess had 2 Cats (C is for Cups, 2 cups in a pint.)

Drawing with Children
by Mona Brookes

If summer feels boring for your kids, teach them to draw.  “But I don’t know how to draw,” you moan.  Well, Mona Brookes shows you and your child how to “see” objects and the space around them and be able to draw it quite accurately.  This isn’t a book where you draw a circle for the head  and a bigger circle for the body.  No, this gem of a book moves you from contour drawing to more detailed endeavors. You will be amazed at how quickly your child’s drawing (and your own,) progress into lovely works of art!  I like using it as a jumping off place for writing a story or poem to go along with the illustrations. It’s a great book for whole family participation. Take a look at it on my Amazon Store.

Teaching is so much easier if  you get kids singing and moving.  My students always loved this little Money Rap. It’s just the ticket for teaching coin denomination. Use a rap cadence and have fun with it.  Follow up by using actual coins while singing the rap.

The Money Rap
Well, I know a song, it’s really kind of funny,
It’s all about coins and learning to count money.

Chorus: Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters
Pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters

Now a penny means one (hold out 1 finger)
And a nickel means five (hold out 5 fingers)
Dimes are worth ten (hold out 10 fingers
Quarters twenty five (flash 10 twice and then 5)
Repeat chorus

Five pennies in a nickel (1 hand fingers stretched)
Two nickels in a dime (hold out 2 fingers)
Five nickels in a quarter (1 hand fingers stretched)
You’ll know it every time.(downward motion both hands)
Repeat chorus

Five pennies make a nickel, Two nickels make a dime
Two dimes and a nickel, make a quarter every time.
Repeat chorus

Four quarters make a dollar and that is quite a lot,
And a dollar in my pocket is exactly what I’ve got.
Repeat chorus

I’ve put together some book recommendations for children and teaching books for parents and teachers, at Memory Joggers  Amazon Store.  I have 5 different categories;
Writing Books for Kids
Math Books for Primary Grades
Creativity Books for Kids
Reluctant Readers
Learning Challenges

These are all books I’ve used in my teaching or recommended to me by educators.  I’ve written a review on several of them in my section called Book Reviews. I hope you’ll check out the Creativity Books for Kids. I recently read an interesting article in Parenting Magazine called, “Why Art Makes Kids Smarter.”

I’ve been concerned for a long time about the cut back of art programs in the public schools. Art, music, drama all provide access to right brain creating and learning and we need this balance of logic (left brain) and creativity (right brain).  They go hand in hand.  How can students learn about Navajo Indians without working with clay to create a pot?  Drawing a mural of the covered wagon migration of settlers across the U.S. gives us a mental picture for remembering what occurred.  Seeing how watercolor can blend and create beauty opens parts of the brain that promotes appreciation.

A friend of mine was helping me pack some boxes. He looked at the material and the box and measured carefully, using all of his left-brain capabilities.  He said only 4 items could possibly fit.  I looked at it using a right brain perspective, and realized if the material was placed in the box sideways (not the normal direction), we could get in 6 items.

My point is, that the creativity and looking at things from a different perspective is a learned skill. It is right brain thinking. This skill is nurtured when we open students’ minds to creative thinking and exploration.

Writing can be daunting.  So much to remember -  spelling, punctuation, paragraphs, opening sentence, closing sentence and all that stuff in between!  Our reluctant writers want no part of it, unless it’s short – very short.  This is why journal writing is so effective.  Kids can get away with a couple of sentences and it doesn’t have to be perfect.  I know what you are thinking; “If it is sloppy writing with misspelled words, why do it?”    The answer is simple – “expression of thoughts.”   By allowing children to express their thoughts gives clarity to their thinking.  I love this quotation from Anne Morrow Lindbergh, “Writing is thinking. It is more than living, for it is being conscious of living.”

Recently I was interviewed for an article on how to help children become journal writers. My main points were:

1. Begin with drawings. After discussing the picture with your child, suggest words they can add that express emotion, like “ouch” or “happy”.  This gives your child the idea that words convey feelings too.

2. Use writing prompts to stimulate ideas.  “Be true to your work, your word, and your friend.” (Abraham Lincoln)  “Being true” means doing what is right. What would you do if you saw a friend cheating? Report it, talk to the friend, or do nothing? By writing about a problem,  your child defines their own reaction.

3. Always ask if your child wants to share their journal writing. Privacy is important.  If you write about the same prompt in your own journal and share, it encourages discussion.

4. This is your time to be completely focused on your child and what they think. Enjoy and have fun!

Learning the meanings of new vocabulary words often stress kids out!  Make it easy on them.  Try making an association or rhyme and drawing a little picture to illustrate the meaning of unfamiliar vocabulary words. Kinesthetic learners need to act out the words in order to remember.  Not sure which learning style they are?  Take a look here.

Vocabulary word: elegant

There once was an elephant named Ms. Gant

Who liked to wear elegant pants

She was graceful and refined

Looking glamorous when she dined

And everyone knew her as Ele Gant.

Visual learners need to draw a picture of an elegant elephant. Audio learners will want to repeat the rhyme over and over. Kinesthetic learners act out the word in their most elegant manner. I guarantee, students will never forget the meaning of this word.

I love inspiring children to write.  During my years in the classroom, I began every morning with an inspiring “Thought for the Day.”  Students wrote a short paragraph as a journal entry.  The thought for the day was either a quotation or saying that stimulated their thinking skills.  The best part was watching them write intently and share their comments with the class.

Many of the writing prompts started classroom discussions about a controversial subject.  I remember the day students wrote about this saying, “Let your conscience be your guide.” What would you do if only one hot dog was left and neither you nor the person in line behind you had received one?  Some children felt it was fine to take the last hot dog since they were the next in line.  Many suggested sharing the hot dog and a few wanted to give the other child the hot dog and go without.  Interesting!  Conscience is a hard concept to understand, but by talking about how you would feel with your action, seemed to get the point across.

One of my colleagues suggested arranging the quotations and sayings into different character building traits.  For example, February’s theme is Love/Honesty/Valentines Day/Presidents/Integrity. Parents and teachers love being able to build on the themes.  The off-shoot from Thought for the Day, is Kid’s Writing Journal.  Same idea but children have lines to write on, in their own journals.

Memorization of quotations or poetry seems to be a lost art.  But anything you memorize stays with you all your life.  Memorization also helps the brain by making synaptic connections.  Encourage students to memorize two or three quotes or sayings each month.

Yes, our website has been revamped and updated!  Looks great doesn’t it?  I think you will find not only outstanding products but lots of helpful memory tips in all subject areas. Read my blogs. We also are debuting two new books; No More Counting on Fingers and the Kid’s Writing Journal.

I’ll be sending out a monthly newsletter with lots of teaching and memory tips.  If you haven’t subscribed  yet, please sign up in the side bar under Free Memory Tips.  I’ll continue to add more Book Reviews and new Resources and Links for your convenience. If you have any favorite sites or resources, let me know.

Hope you like all the changes and stop by to see what is new.  Fill out our short survey and be entered in a drawing for an Amazon $25 gift certificate (deadline is May 30, 20210.)  Give me your feedback, I love to hear from you!

Donnalyn Yates

I ran across this silly video and thought it demonstrates how learning takes place with audio and kinesthetic learners. As you know, audio learners must speak or sing the information aloud to remember it.  Kinesthetic learners need to get their bodies involved and moving. When I teach zero times any number, I use this same idea.  The zero is round and looks like a mouth.  And what does a mouth do?  It eats things.  In fact when you are multiplying zero times any number, that hungry mouth gobbles up the other number and nothing is left except the mouth (0).  Make it into a game to see who can write the largest number and then gobble it up so all that is left is zero.

In my multiplication system I used “Sticky Gum” for “one times any other number.”  When you chew a stick of gum it gets very sticky and when it touches (or is multiplied) by another number, it sticks to that other number.  So 1 x 5 = 5.  The gum stuck to the five.  This could be put to song similar to the sticky gum song in the video.  In place of it getting stuck to the nose or face, it could get stuck to numbers.  Children are memorizing while having fun singing and clapping!

Wow!  That’s a bold claim!  But it’s true.  There are two math subject areas that MUST be memorized or children will suffer all of their lives… addition/subtraction facts and multiplication/division facts. Picture this; your child is taking a math test with word problems and they understand the mathematical procedure of what to do, but as they are slowly counting on their fingers, they miss by one.  The problem is wrong, near misses don’t count.   Plus they aren’t able to finish all of the test because so much time is wasted counting.  Math scores plummet.

Being a teacher, I would say 80% of the errors made are because children do not add/subtract or multiply/divide correctly.  They have not memorized the facts..  I saw this over and over while teaching third grade.  I was so frustrated I decided to develop memory systems using pictures, stories and rhymes to teach kids to memorize each fact.  And believe me, it worked!

Once students can answer the question, what is 8 + 4, and be able to blurt out 12 without using some slow counting method, they are on the road to success.  I’ve had adults tell me they still count on their fingers for some of the numbers, or they don’t have any idea what 8 x 9 is.  The brain relies on habits.  If the habit of counting is never replaced with memorization, the consequences will affect the person all their lives.  Think of taking the SAT’s and needing to count or guess at an answer.

Determine which facts your child needs to memorize.  Focus on those facts using memory techniques that work. You will be amazed at how fast they will learn to memorize and be able to recall the answers quickly. Yes, they will be able to improve their math scores in 30 days!