The Big Book of Memos — PDF

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

📚 The Great Book of Mnemonics — Printable PDF version

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

This book gathers 189 clever mnemonic tips to help retain everything
effortlessly, in all subjects:

✋ The 9 times table on your fingers
🚗 "Mais où est donc Ornicar?" (the conjunctions)
🪐 The planets in order
✏️ Common spelling traps… and many more!

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

🖨️ The printable PDF version:
• 113 full-color pages, A4 format
• Received immediately after purchase
• Print at home as many times as you like
• Reprint a page as soon as it's scribbled on

👶 From age 6 · Primary school (CP to CM2) · Designed in France 🇫🇷

Give your child the method that makes lessons easy. 💡

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

The file is the entire book: 113 full-color pages in A4 format, with 189 numbered mnemonic tips divided into nine sections (math and numbers, spelling, conjugation, geography, history, science, arts and music, English, and a "daily life tips" section). One or two tips per page on colorful cards, with a short exercise at the bottom of each content page: 97 corrected exercises, with all answers provided at the end of the file.

Four examples taken from the file

"Le Chat De Marie" (Marie's Cat) The four Roman numerals that cause trouble: L equals 50, C equals 100, D equals 500, and M equals 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 becomes -amment, -ent becomes -emment" The two-step rule for adverbs: "courant" becomes "couramment," "prudent" becomes "prudemment."

"Reste En Classe Ou Fais de Grandes Études" (Stay in class or go to university) The classification of living things in order: kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, species.

You will also find "Roger Ose Jouer Volontiers Bien Innocemment Vendredi" for the colors of the rainbow, and the three dynasties in order, Merovingians, Carolingians, Capetians, from Clovis to Hugh Capet.

What the PDF format changes

It is a file that opens on a computer, tablet, or phone. You 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 a second time when the first has been doodled on.

The trade-off is simple: printing is your responsibility, and 113 color pages take up paper and ink. However, there is no obligation to print everything: you can print pages 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 choose page by page, reprint at will, or give the same tip to two children at the same time. Choose the Pense-Bêtes Primaire paperback book, from CP to CM2 if you prefer a real bound book to flip through without screens or printers, and to take everywhere. The content is identical: same mnemonic devices, same exercises, same answers.

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

A lesson learned at night fades quickly, and the erasing begins the very next day. What slows this down isn't the time spent in the notebook: it's the number of times the child has retrieved the information from their head without looking at it.

A mnemonic device is used for exactly this. It transforms a list that needs to be learned by heart into a sentence, an image, or a gesture—something that can be recalled without any aid, in the car or on the playground. A funny sentence sticks to the memory; counting on fingers adds the memory of a movement. Two paths are better than one for retrieving the same lesson, especially on the morning of a test when the first one fails.

The file doesn't just provide the tips: its final section also explains how to use them, and ends with advice parents know by instinct. Reciting the lesson at night, in bed: at night, the book explains, the brain organizes everything, like a closet.

Five cards taken from elsewhere in the file

"Naples Est Sous l’Orage" (Naples is in the storm). The four cardinal points in the order they are recited, turning clockwise from the top of the compass: North, East, South, West. The card features a drawn compass with the direction of the turn indicated.

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

"Before m, b, p, we use an m". Impossible, tomber, emmener, chambre: the n disguises itself as an m. The book points out four rebels to learn by heart: bonbon, bonbonne, néanmoins, and embonpoint.

Insect or spider? Count the legs: six for an insect—the ant, the bee, the ladybug; eight for a spider, which never has wings. Therefore, a spider is not an insect.

Camel or dromedary? The first letter indicates the number of humps, provided you lay it down: the D in "dromadaire" has one round back, the M in "chameau" has two. One hump for the dromedary, two for the camel.

The other two levels exist in the same format: the middle school PDF and the high school PDF.

A file you can print multiple times, and why it matters

A book opens, closes, and is put away. A file can be printed as many times as you like, and that is 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 while passing by, several times a day. It is effortless repetition: no one sits down to "study the poster," yet eventually, it is learned.

There is nothing mysterious about this mechanism. What helps retention is not the duration of a session but the number of times you encounter the material. A concept reviewed five days in a row is better established than a concept worked on for an hour all at once and then forgotten. A child who has the order of the planets before their eyes every morning ends up reciting it without ever feeling like they had to learn it.

Three ways to use it at home

Display. Two or three pages, no more—the ones currently causing trouble. Replace them once they are mastered. A wall covered in twenty posters is no longer read.

Quiz. The parent holds the page, the child answers from memory. Making a mistake and then correcting it does more for memorization than an extra reading, because the child had to retrieve the information instead of just recognizing it.

Reprint. A scribbled-on page, an exercise already completed, a notebook left at the other parent's house: just print it again, and that’s it. That is something paper alone doesn't allow.

This file does not replace classroom work and does not claim to learn in the child's place. It simply makes the tips available where they are needed: on the kitchen table, not at the bottom of a schoolbag.

How to really use it? Our guide primary school memorization techniques details the methods that work, concrete examples, and common revision mistakes to avoid.