Memorizing Important Facts
Memorizing facts such as names, dates, vocabulary words or lists can be difficult. Here are several suggestions that can make memorizing a bit easier.- To remember a list of facts, try turning them into an acronym or mnemonic.
- An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a
set phrase or series of words. For instance: WAC stands for Women's Army Corps, OPEC for Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or LORAN for long-range navigation.
- A mnemonic is something intended to assist the memory, like a verse or formula. For instance, in order to remember the planets (in order) one mnemonic is the sentence: Mark's Very Extravagant Mother Just Sent Us Ninety Parakeets. The first letter in each word stands for a planet: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Pluto.
- An acronym is a word formed from the initial letters or groups of letters of words in a
set phrase or series of words. For instance: WAC stands for Women's Army Corps, OPEC for Organization
of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or LORAN for long-range navigation.
- Make flashcards to remember math facts, vocabulary words and their definitions, or events and historical dates.
- Create a rhyming poem to help remember names and dates.
- An old favorite is: In fourteen hundred and ninety two Columbus sailed the ocean blue.
- Draw a dramatic or silly picture of the fact to make it particularly memorable.
- In order to remember a larger number of facts, play the game of "Memory".
- To play, you need index cards, a pen or pencil, and 2 or more players.
- Make the first card by putting a question on one side of it such as "Who is the current President of the United States?"
- Make a second card with the answer to the question on it:
"President William Jefferson Clinton".
- Make enough pairs of cards to keep the game interesting.
- Shuffle the cards and place them face down on a table or floor.
- In order to play, each contestant picks up a card
and tries to match it with its correct counterpart. If successful, the contestant keeps the pair of cards and continues taking turns
until he/she can no longer make any matches.
- The player that has the most cards in his/her possession at the end of the game wins.
- This game works well with cards that match by event and date, facts from the periodic chart, or vocabulary words and definitions.
November Events
Find educational resources for every day in November. Fill your November lessons with activities for Thanksgiving (Nov. 27).
Math Printables
Browse our most popular math resources in our Printable Rulers & Protractors Slideshow and Number Lines & Place-Value Charts Slideshow.
New Resources
Not only have we added new printable books for Maps & Activities and The Human Body, but we've also focused on new classroom management resources. Try our Homework Excuse Form, Quieting the Class Quickly, Handling Misbehavior During Instruction, and Checking Student Progress in Homework. Take a look at all the new pages added to TeacherVision.
Walden Forums
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2009 Educators' Calendar
There's something worth celebrating every day! Find fun and educationally relevant holidays, events, and celebrations for each day of the year.
Printable Maps
Enrich your lessons with our collection of printable world maps depicting continents, countries, capitals, political boundaries, lines of longitude and latitude, climate zones, oceans, land forms, and more. Plus, browse our collection of Unites States maps.
Daily Printables
Add a TeacherVision widget to your blog, personalized homepage (such as iGoogle or Pageflakes), or social networking sites (such as Facebook). Our widgets feature a different fifth-grade language arts printable or fourth-grade math printable for each day of the year.
Discussion Guide: The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World
The teacher's guide for The Mayflower and the Pilgrims' New World, from Penguin Young Readers, is filled with discussion questions, research assignments, and writing activities to engage your students in early American history. Enjoy this book with your students around Thanksgiving or when introducing them to the Colonial Period and Native American History.
