Sunday, January 31, 2010

Conversation

Brendan was funny on the phone with me yesterday. He went into this: My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us Nine Pizzas. I said, “Oh, you are using a mnemonic device to name the planets,” and named the first three. He then went on to name the rest of them and added, “In January, 2006, Pluto’s status as a planet was changed. Because of its orbit, Pluto is a dwarf planet.” I said that’s right and asked him what the sentence should be without Pluto. He said, “My Very Educated Mother Just Served Us … Nothing. Now we will no longer enjoy our mother’s delicious home-cooked Pluto.” I guess that was on the DVD he got this from, too. I'll have to ask his parents if he edited that last part or not.

Interesting child for sure. He didn’t show as much interest in the mnemonics I gave him for the Great Lakes but will probably remember it. (HOMES = Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior)



6 comments:

Miss Ginger Grant said...

Auntie Flame! Don't leave us hanging! What's the mnemonic for the great lakes?

the dogs' mother said...

What's the one about Aunt Sally??

Joy said...

I added it to the post, Miss Ginger! They spell HOMES.

Frog, isn't that an algebra mnemonic for order of operations? Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally (parenthesis exponents, multiplication, division, addition, subtraction)

Then there's this one for quadratic equations.
FOIL (first, outer, inner, last)

Anybody have others?

the dogs' mother said...

That's right! I taught it to a fifth grader I had (he zoomed ahead in math) and I hope he remembers it better than I did!!

Ken Riches said...

Sounds like a bright little wippersnapper :o)

Oxy said...

Due to IBM's penchant for sending staff to all sorts of places, the acronym IBM was used for I've Been Moved. And also as IBM in my day were very 'parental' i.e. 'cradle to grave' (sadly no longer), it became I'm Big Mother.