My governor has just extended the stay at home order for another month, so kiddo just got another week or two off of school. Thankfully, every teacher in Washington has worked up their curriculum to take place on Google Classroom and/or a few other classroom management systems like ClassDojo.

In the spirit of this, I thought I would share some of my favorite mnemonic devices. (Why yes, I *AM* a geek!)

— 1 —

Order of sharps in the key signature. I learned this when I was 10 years old though my piano teacher doesn’t remember teaching me that the “B” stood for “bugs”.

Fat
Cats
Go
Down
Alleys
Eating
Bugs

— 2 —

Order of flats in the key signature. BEAD is its own word in this one.

B
E
A
D
Gum
Candy
Fruit

— 3 —

The Great Lakes. I think this is the first one I remember learning. It’s also the example I shared of a mnemonic device in one of my tutor trainings.

Huron
Ontario
Michigan
Erie
Superior

— 4 —

Care for a sprain. This one is fairly well-known.

Rest
Ice
Compression
Elevation

— 5 —

Order of operations in mathematics. A friend of mine is a math teacher, and her department dressed up as this mnemonic device one year!

Parentheses
Exponents
Multiplication
Division
Addition
Subtraction

becomes…

Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally

— 6 —

Colors of the rainbow. Anyone else have a friend named Roy G. Biv?

Red
Orange
Yellow

Green

Blue
Indigo
Violet

— 7 —

Order of planets. Pluto is a planet. Fight me, Neil Degrasse Tyson!

Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto

becomes…

My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pickles.

For more Quick Takes, visit Kelly at This Ain’t The Lyceum.