Memos

A lesson learned in the evening is gone by the morning. Rereading over and over is not enough: memory does not retain what is repeated; it retains what is well anchored. This is precisely the role of a mnemonic aid: an image, a sentence, a trick — and the concept finally finds something to latch onto.

The Kidibook Pense-Bêtes (Mnemonic) collection gathers our collections of mnemonic tips, from primary school up to competitive exams: simple and concrete ways to remember planets, conjugations, theorems… and much more.

From school desks to exam halls

Mnemonic aids are no longer just for high schoolers. Two collections are now aimed at adults preparing for a decisive deadline:

• The Healthcare Student's Mnemonic Guide — 150 tips, 160 pages, 10 fields, to provide anchor points for revisions that evaporate from one day to the next.
• The CRPE Mnemonic Guide — 2026 edition — 150 tips, 164 pages, 10 sections, content verified against official texts, to prepare for a competitive exam that does not forgive approximation.

Find them gathered in the Studies & Competitive Exams collection.

How to choose your mnemonic guide?

• By level: primary, middle school, high school, higher education — each collection adheres to the concepts actually in the curriculum.
• By format: paperback book to keep on hand, or PDF to print and post above your desk.
• By use: daily revision, final stretch before an exam, or a quick boost for a concept that just won't stick.

Also discover: because some things must be known by heart well before exams, Malo & Lila, the little first-aiders teaches children from 1st to 5th grade the right reflexes in the face of an accident, in 44 pages and 10 chapters aligned with the "Learning to provide aid" curriculum.

Books of mnemonic devices for school, from primary to high school

The collections in this series all rely on the same principle: a difficult concept becomes a sentence, an image, or a gesture. "Mais où est donc Ornicar ?" for conjunctions, SOH-CAH-TOA for trigonometry, "Me Voici Tout Mouillé, Je Suis Un Nageur" for the order of the planets. These are mnemonic devices, nothing more: the three school volumes are not summaries of the curriculum and do not replace the course. They provide handholds, subject by subject, so that what was understood in class stays in memory.

The right volume according to the level

Primary, from 1st to 5th grade

The Great Book of Primary Mnemonics brings together 189 tips in nine sections, from multiplication tables to planets, with 97 corrected exercises and their solutions at the end of the book. Of the three school volumes, it is the only one to include a section devoted to everyday tricks: months with 30 days, traffic lights, or how to learn a lesson.

Middle school, from 6th to 9th grade

The Middle School version contains 148 tips divided into nine sections, including Spanish, and 74 corrected exercises. Its final section covers work methods and the middle school diploma: testing yourself rather than rereading, spacing out your revisions, decoding a prompt.

High school, from 10th to 12th grade

The High School version is the densest: 274 tips in eleven sections, including an entire philosophy and social science section, 137 exercises, and ten pages of written corrections. It goes all the way up to the Baccalauréat and the "Grand Oral."

The same book, in a printable PDF version

The three school volumes are also available in digital format, to print at home as many times as necessary: Primary in PDF, Middle School in PDF, and High School in PDF. The content is identical to that of the paperback book.

And after high school

Two collections extend the series for adults preparing for a decisive deadline: The Healthcare Student's Mnemonic Guide and The CRPE Mnemonic Guide, 2026 edition, gathered in the Studies & Competitive Exams collection.

Books designed to be opened for five minutes

In the three school levels, each tip fits on a numbered colored card, with the formula to remember written in large print. One or two cards per page, an exercise at the bottom of each content page, and all solutions grouped at the end. The text speaks directly to the student, using the informal "you." One can therefore read a card, do the exercise, close the book, and start again the next day.

Also discover: because some things must be known well before exams, Malo & Lila, the little first-aiders teaches children from 1st to 5th grade the right reflexes in the face of an accident.

How to memorize: what a mnemonic device does

A mnemonic device does not add memory. It changes the form of what must be remembered. A list of words without internal logic is lost in a few days; the same list transformed into a sentence, a made-up word, or an image lasts much longer, because the mind finally has a handle to return to.

The known processes are few. First letters, when each word of a sentence reminds one of a term to recite in order. The made-up word, when letters put end-to-end form a word that does not exist but is memorable, like DOVES or DOCTOR. Number of letters, when the length of a word codes for a digit. Visualization, when an absurd scene replaces a definition. Gesture, when fingers do the calculation in place of memory. The collections in this series use all five: first letters everywhere, made-up words, images, gestures, and number of letters once, for the decimals of pi in the Primary volume.

The rest depends on use. Learning by heart by rereading mostly gives the impression of knowing, and this impression is not knowledge. Mnemonic techniques that work require two simple things: looking for the answer before reading it, and returning to the concept at intervals of several days. A tip makes the first gesture possible from the start, when you still know almost nothing.

A tip also has its limits. It fixes a form, not a line of reasoning: it provides the order of words, the sign, the placement of an agreement, and nothing more. The rest remains standard work. It is, moreover, on this observation that the Primary volume closes, whose very last card invites the child to create their own: the best mnemonic aids, the book writes, are those you invent yourself.

What these books are not

None of the collections in this series offers memory palaces, the method of loci, or references to Cicero and the art of memory of ancient orators. These methods exist and work, but they require long training, contrary to the usage intended here: a card read in thirty seconds, usable for the next test. They also do not address memory disorders, which fall under the purview of a healthcare professional. Mind mapping, however, is present in the "Methods" section of the Middle and High School volumes.

One tip per level, beyond the examples already cited

Primary: the lying Moon

"The Moon is a liar: C = wanes (décroît), D = waxes (croît)." When the crescent draws a D, the Moon is growing (Début); when it draws a C, it is disappearing. It is the opposite of what the letter suggests, and that is why it is called a liar. The card is in the science section of the Primary volume.

Middle school: "23 from dad + 23 from mom = 46"

Each cell carries 46 chromosomes, or 23 pairs. The Middle School version turns this into an addition, then applies it to the sperm and the egg, which contribute 23 chromosomes each and produce a zygote with 46.

High school: QQOQCP

Who, What, Where, When, How, Why (Qui, Quoi, Où, Quand, Comment, Pourquoi). Six questions to ask before writing a single line on a document, in history, in social sciences, or in French. The High School version makes this a method card, with the advice to jot everything down on a rough draft before starting.

Math that finally sticks: tables, mental math, numeration

If mathematics comes up so often in parents' searches, it is because it concentrates everything that memory hates: abstract numbers, steps to follow in order, zero stories to tell oneself. The math mnemonic aids in the Great Book attack the problem through imagery: numeration and integers, multiplication tables on the fingers — the famous technique that allows tables to be learned without reciting them in a loop —, mental calculation — calculating mentally becomes a reflex, not an effort —, fractions and decimals, problem solving. Learning to calculate ceases to be a chore when each technique fits into an image: the child is no longer a victim of their calculations; they trigger them. And when a subtraction with regrouping or a geometry figure gets stuck, it is rarely intelligence that is lacking — it is the hook.

Multiplication tables: understand first, memorize later

Before learning multiplication by heart, a child needs two insights that school never repeats enough. The first is commutativity: doing a multiplication in one direction or the other gives the same result — 7 × 3 is 3 × 7. Suddenly, the Pythagorean table, this large grid that intimidates, loses half its squares. The second is that multiplication tables extend what they already know: the addition table first, repeated additions then, then the move to the multiplier. Add mental calculation strategies — add a ten then subtract for the 9s table, decomposition for large numbers, squares (6 × 6, 7 × 7, 8 × 8) as anchor points — and doing mental math becomes a construction game, not a recitation.

Many families have already tried everything: paper fortune tellers, card games, calculation belts, score-based apps. It's fun, and these table games have their place — but when each table resets to zero on Monday, the hook is missing. That is where the mnemonic aid acts: multiplication tables on the fingers, the technique in the Great Book, gives the child a gesture they keep forever. In 4th and 5th-grade math, the same reflexes support divisions — each division is a multiplication read backward —, decimal numbers, and the first fraction. Each student advances at their own pace, and the gold medal is the day the teacher asks for 7 × 8 and the hand goes up all by itself.

Revise without revising, from 1st to 5th grade

A mnemonic device is not an educational gadget: it is the shortest way to memorize a concept for good. Rather than revising by rereading — the method that wears out erasers and nerves —, the primary school child retains a sentence: "Mais où est donc Ornicar ?" for conjunctions, "Me Voici Tout Mouillé, Je Suis Un Nageur" for the order of the planets. From 1st grade up to 5th grade, each card follows elementary school learning and the new curricula: conjugation, spelling, geography, history, science, civics, English, music, and life skills. Mental recitation replaces the rote memorization endured.

In class as in tutoring

Many teachers write us the same thing: "my students retain in one session what my class used to forget from one assessment to the next." This is the strength of a true mnemonic device — it can be shared in thirty seconds, at the board as well as at home, and it lasts until the assessments. In tutoring, the book serves as a toolkit: you pick the tip of the day, and the child leaves with a victory.

How to really retain? A book of tips is only useful if the method follows. Our guides explain, audience by audience, what works — mnemonic devices, active recall, spaced repetition — and the mistakes that waste the most time: memorizing in primary school · in middle school · in high school · for the CRPE · in nursing school.
To choose between the five volumes, read which mnemonic device book to choose.