The Big Book of Memory Tricks — PDF

✨ NEW ILLUSTRATED EDITION — Kidibook’s owl mascot now guides your child through every chapter: 9 large full-page illustrations, a redesigned cover, and 18 new tips (b or d, the 8 neighbouring countries, lightning and thunder, emergency numbers, and more).

📚 The Big Book of Memory Tricks — Printable PDF Version

Does your child study for hours… only to forget everything the next day?
The problem isn’t your child — it’s the method.

This book brings together 189 clever mnemonic tricks to help remember everything effortlessly, across all subjects:

✋ The 9 times table on your fingers
🚗 “Mais où est donc Ornicar?” (conjunctions)
🪐 The planets in order
✏️ Spelling pitfalls… and many more!

Suddenly, it all clicks — and homework becomes a game.

🖨️ Printable PDF version:
• 107 full-colour A4 pages
• Delivered immediately after purchase
• Print at home as many times as you like
• Reprint any page as soon as it gets scribbled on

👶 From age 6 · from CP to CM2 (Year 2 to Year 6/Key Stage 1 & 2) · designed in France 🇫🇷

Give your child the method that makes lessons easy. 💡

A book of mnemonic devices for children in PDF, from CP to CM2

The file is the complete book: 107 colour pages, A4 format, and 189 numbered mnemonic tips, divided into nine sections (maths and numbers, spelling, conjugation, geography, history, science, arts and music, English, and a section on “everyday tricks”). One or two tips per page, on colourful cards, with a short exercise at the bottom of each content page: 97 exercises with answers, and all solutions at the end of the file.

Four sample tips from the file

“Le Chat De Marie” The four tricky Roman numerals: L is 50, C is 100, D is 500, and M is 1000.

“Que j’aime à faire apprendre un nombre utile aux sages” Count the letters in each word to find the decimals of pi: 3.1415926535.

“-ant gives -amment, -ent gives -emment” The rule for adverbs in two steps: courant becomes couramment, prudent becomes prudemment.

“Reste En Classe Ou Fais de Grandes Études” The classification of living things in order: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

You’ll also find “Roger Ose Jouer Volontiers Bien Innocemment Vendredi” for the colours of the rainbow, and the three dynasties in order, MÉrovingiens, CArolingiens, CApétiens, from Clovis to Hugues Capet.

What the PDF format changes

It’s a file you open on a computer, tablet, or phone. Print what you want, when you want: the Roman numerals page before a history test, the adverbs page to display above the desk, the same page again if the first one gets scribbled on.

The trade-off is simple: printing is up to you, and 107 colour pages means using paper and ink. But you don’t have to print everything: you can print pages as needed throughout the year, subject by subject, and read the rest on screen.

PDF or paperback book?

Choose the PDF if you want to pick and print pages as you need, reprint as often as you like, or give the same tip to two children at once. Choose the paperback book Pense-Bêtes Primaire, from CP to CM2 if you prefer a real bound book to flip through without a screen or printer, and to take anywhere. The content is the same: same mnemonic devices, same exercises, same answers.

What remains the next day from a lesson learned the night before

A lesson learned in the evening fades quickly, and forgetting starts as soon as the next night. What slows this down isn’t the time spent with the book: it’s the number of times the child has to recall the information from memory, without looking.

A mnemonic device is made for this. It turns a list to memorise into a phrase, an image, or a gesture — something you can repeat to yourself without notes, in the car or in the playground. A funny phrase sticks in your memory; counting on your fingers adds a physical action. Two ways to recall the same lesson are better than one, especially on a test morning when the first way fails.

The file doesn’t just give the tips: its final section also explains how to use them, and ends with advice parents know by instinct. Recite the lesson at bedtime: during the night, the book says, the brain organises everything, like tidying a wardrobe.

Five more cards from the file

“Naples Est Sous l’Orage”. The four cardinal points in the order you recite them, turning clockwise from the top of the compass: North, East, South, West. The card shows a drawn compass, with the direction indicated.

Stalactite or stalagmite? One letter is enough: stalactite falls from the ceiling (Tombe), stalagmite rises from the ground (Monte). The page shows a cross-section of a cave, with the two stone points facing each other.

“Devant m, b, p, on met un m”. Impossible, tomber, emmener, chambre: the n changes to m. The book points out four exceptions to learn by heart: bonbon, bonbonne, néanmoins, and embonpoint.

Insect or spider? Count the legs: six for an insect (ant, bee, ladybird); eight for a spider, which never has wings. So a spider is not an insect.

Camel or dromedary? The first letter tells you the number of humps if you lay it down: the D in dromedary has one rounded back, the M in camel has two. One hump for the dromedary, two for the camel.

The other two levels are available in the same format: the PDF for collège (lower secondary) and the PDF for lycée (upper secondary).

A file you can print multiple times — and what that changes

A book opens, closes, and is put away. A file can be printed as many times as you like — and that’s the real difference for a primary school child.

The multiplication tables page can go on the fridge. The planets page above the desk. The “a or à?” and “son or sont?” pages in the French folder. The child sees them without thinking, for ten seconds at a time, several times a day. That’s effortless repetition: no one sits down to “learn the poster”, yet it ends up being known by heart.

This mechanism isn’t mysterious. What helps memorisation isn’t the length of a session, but the number of times you come across the information. A concept seen five days in a row sticks better than one worked on for an hour and then forgotten. A child who sees the order of the planets every morning will eventually recite it without ever feeling like they had to learn it.

Three ways to use it at home

Display. Two or three pages, no more — just the ones that are tricky right now. Replace them when they’re mastered. A wall covered in twenty posters won’t get read.

Quiz. The parent holds the page, the child answers from memory. Making a mistake and correcting it helps memorisation more than rereading, because the child has to recall rather than recognise.

Reprint. A scribbled page, an exercise already done, a notebook left at the other parent’s house: just print again. That’s what paper books can’t do.

This file doesn’t replace schoolwork and doesn’t claim to teach instead of the child. It simply makes the tips available where they’re needed: on the kitchen table, not buried in a schoolbag.

How do you really use it? Our guide memorisation techniques for primary school details effective methods, concrete examples, and revision mistakes to avoid.