Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin
| Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin | |
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| Category: Children's Non-Fiction | |
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Reviewer: Sue Magee
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| Summary: Not just the facts and ways to remember them but the methods of developing your own ways of remembering things. Brilliant! | |
| Buy? Yes | Borrow? Yes |
| Pages: 128 | Date: October 2012 |
| Publisher: Michael O'Mara Books | |
| ISBN: 978-1780551050 | |
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When I look back on my school days it didn't seem terribly complicated, but when I see what my grandchildren are coping with I'm amazed at all that they have to remember. They need to have methods of jogging their memories. Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy gives them lots of ways of remembering a rich variety of facts, but also shows them how they can develop their own ways of helping their memory. It's a book about mnemonics such as rhymes, acrostics, stories, grouping, linking, pictures, acronyms and wordplay. It's not just the methods of remembering that are there - there are all sorts of facts in with the methods.
For the first time, I fully understand how to calculate volume. It's all explained. Volume Equals Area x Depth. And I won't forget it either because all I need to remember is that Violent Eagles Are Dangerous. Have you ever struggled to remember the different types of atmosphere around Earth? It's Troposphere, Stratosphere, Mesosphere, Thermosphere and Exosphere - but all you need to remember is that TROll's STRAw MESses THE EXit. Do you get the idea? Great. There are hundreds of ideas like this, covering spelling, maths, geography, science and loads of other things.
It's fun too, with nothing heavy, nothing homework about it. Some of the illustrations had me giggling away and there are lots of points about popular literature and sporting stars which are decidedly NOT academic - but they are a good way of encouraging children to strengthen their memories. Don't knock the idea either - it's not that long ago that I went to see my GP and he used his own mnemonic to explain something which he didn't meet every day. It's a skill for life.
I'd like to thank the publishers for sending a copy to the Bookbag.
If this book appeals then we can recommend another book by the same publisher which we think is a real find. Why? by Joel Levy is a treasure trove of stuff you should know, but might not. We've also enjoyed An Object of Beauty and Scientist Academy: Are You Ready For the Challenge? by Steve Martin and Essi Kimpimaki.
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You can read more book reviews or buy Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin at Amazon.co.uk Amazon currently charges £2.99 for standard delivery for orders under £20, over which delivery is free.
You can read more book reviews or buy Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy: Cool Ways to Remember Stuff by Steve Martin at Amazon.com.
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Margaret Wilde said:
I do like these ways of helping us to remember facts.
When I was young and learning to play the piano, All Cows Eat Grass was the mnemonic I was taught to remember the notes A, C, E, G in the spaces of the bass clef. No doubt music students are still taught that. - Today the notes are the same. The mnemonic works the same. But is the statement itself still true? In the modern world in which agribusiness has taken over from so much traditional farming, and many cows are confined and never get a chance to graze in grassy pastures, maybe we should adopt a different mnemonic for these notes.
