The girls watched Steve Demme’s video on how to memorize the Greek alphabet a short while back. Mr Demme uses a number of mnemonic devices to help kids and parents remember some of the letters, some of which are pretty comical. Now, Mr Demme explains in the video that some of the letter names are intentionally mispronounced to help develop a mini-narrative that acts as a memory aid. After giving the story with the mondegreens he reviews the written alphabet on his white board and gives the correct pronunciation of the letters. We’ve also gone back over the corrected alphabet several times ourselves, when Dojogirl was working on mastering it.

I think she’s pretty much got it, and our Banana is coming along as well. It’s not something they need at the moment, but it’s good for them to do memory work and since they enjoyed it I’m pleased for them to be following up on the video in their own time. I hadn’t expected the Commandant to remember any of the video but we had her watch it too. She enjoys being included with the “big girls” and since I’m thinking of using the Math-U-See Primer for her come fall, it’s good that she finds Mr Demme amusing.

So Dojogirl is out in the kitchen washing dishes, and she’s reciting the Greek alphabet aloud. The Banana is listening quietly as she does her own chores. Everything is going smoothly. “….. Lambda, mu, nu, xi, omicron—” Then from the Bug’s bedroom I hear, “No! Oh my corn!” The Commandant has been listening and she feels it is her duty to “correct” her big sister!

For those of you who haven’t seen the video, let me explain. The memory cue for these five letters is a little story about a farmer who raised little “lambdas” and these beasts were a bit confused, thinking themselves to be cows. So instead of bleating they say, “Mu… nu….” To remember the next two letters we have to imagine that the “lambdas” have gotten into the farmer’s field and are having a good munch on his crop. When he discovers this he exclaims, “K’see! Oh my corn!”

As I said, Mr Demme did a great job of explaining that he was twisting the pronunciation in order to make the letter names more memorable. That part made perfect sense to the rest of us, but the Commandant didn’t quite “catch it.” Apparently she did catch the sequence of letters, though!

It’s amazing what a 3-1/2 year old can learn! (Now I wonder if I’m going to have to go through un-learning it with her? Maybe we should have waited a bit before she saw that video…..)

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