Thursday, February 10, 2011

I love Mnemonic Devices

Today we talked about Estimation, Order of Operations, Division, and Exponents. When I was a kid I learned best from mnemonic devices. Who remembers "My Very Excellent Mother Just Served Us Nectarines" (Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune)?  It's hard memorizing things sometimes, but I had never heard this one before. This would have been beyond helpful in Pre-Algebra, which is when my problem with math started.




"My Dear Aunt Sally"- The Big Picture
    Two rules of thumb are helpful in remembering the order of operation or the prioritization which governs mathematical expressions. These are:
  • The more sophisticated operation has priority.
  • Work from left to right if operations have the same priority.
    Multiplication and division are more sophisticated than addition and subtraction so, multiplication or division is done before addition or subtraction.
    Multiplication and division have the same level of sophistication so they have the same priority. THE LEFT MOST OPERATION IS DONE FIRST.

I loved everything about this site. It is very math friendly and where I got my pictures from.
http://www.sd104.s-cook.k12.il.us/students/math/ileanazarco/aboutmath.htm
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2 comments:

  1. meghan.nealis3014February 13, 2011 at 2:26 PM

    When we played the bingo game in class, i found it easy to do all the math problems. Order of operations is fun and challenging at times. The mneumonic phrase "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally" will help children to remember the order of operations a lot easier. I think its a very creative approach to memorization.

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  2. Jodi WardFebruary 13, 2011 at 4:14 PM

    Gwen, thank you for adding the game sites! I think our future students will LOVE these! You even included some with the base ten blocks, my favorite. I agree that sometimes the mnemonics are nearly as difficult to remember as the order itself. Great blog by the way!!!

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