Customer Reviews

Mrs. Riley Bought Five Itchy Aardvarks and Other Painless Tricks for Memorizing Science Facts (Adventures in Memory)

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I am a long-time fan of Brian P. Cleary's Words are Categorical books and his and Brian Gable's Math is Categorical books also. When I saw that he wrote a book with memorization tips for science, I just had to check it out. It really did take the pain out of teaching many of the items my 5th graders are tested on in Science. He uses everything from first letter-mnemonics to song and visual memory tricks to make a book that helps me to teach science. His "Read On!" blurbs offer the names of books with more information on each topic, and that has been invaluable. For me, a great investment!

The layout of this book should have been my first clue. While his other books are "targeted" to first and second graders (even though my 5th grader still loves them and learns from them), these don't have the playfulness in the other books (Words are CATegorical). The mnemonics are hard to memorize, most of them are not even applicable to what my kids are learning (and with a 2nd grader and 5th grader you'd think they would fall somewhere in that spectrum).
Overall I'd say spend your money on his word books but not one these (the same goes for the math series (Math is CATegorical).

Part of the "Adventures in Memory" series, "Mrs. Riley Bought Five Itchy Aardvarks" is a picturebook meant to introduce children to simple mnemonic tools for memorizing scientific facts. The title is an easy way to memorize the six different animal classifications (Mammals, Reptiles, Birds, Fish, Insects, and Amphibian), but the helpful tips and tricks include far more than just catchy phrases. There's a rap about light ("When light reaches somethin' / like a pool or a pumpkin: / reflected, refracted, absorbed"), a mock play about the ecosystem that shows cartoon characters anthropomorphizing the role of different forces ("Here are DeShawn and Denise, two decomposers... Our decomposers are using karate chops to break down everything around them. Decomposers are usually fungi and bacteria."), a very silly song about photosynthesis ("Pho-to-syn-the-sis / helps us all to thrive. / Animals, plants, and people too- / it keeps us all alive!") and much more. An invaluable supplement to elementary and middle school children's libraries, and a useful go-to resource for science teachers (or parents!) who want to make sure the basic facts stick in their kids' heads! Highly recommended.