Saturday, January 9, 2010

Binomial What?

I know, it's Saturday. There should be no scientific terms used during the weekend and I apologize. But today when I got Jack down for a nap, which is a minor miracle in and of itself these days, Ella had a question for me.

"Mommy, can we do my science lesson now?"

Now not even I, The Merciless Mommy, Denier of Snow Days, had planned any schoolwork for today. But, how do you say no when a 7 year old wants to study. So I broke out the book and we sat down for a lesson. We're doing zoology, which is the only reason she wanted to have a lesson. She is nuts for animals. In fact, she wants to be a veterinarian when she grows up...and a champion figure skater and a mommy.

So I'm reading about zoology, taxonomy and binomial nomenclature and my brain screamed "you already have a college degree stop reading big words!" Again, I'm not sure which of us in school because today I learned all about animal classification and the Latin names for animals. Would you like to get smarter today as well? Great, here's your lesson:

Do you remember anything about animal classification? You know kingdom, phylum, etc. Yeah, neither did I. Anyway, they gave us a helpful mnemonic device for remembering the order of all the groups for classification. "Kings Play Chess On Fine Glass Sets." Kingdom, Phylum, Class, Order, Family, Genus, Species. Ah, can you feel the smart cells growing?

Of course the next question asked Ella to come up with her own mnemonic. She went with Kids Play Checkers On Fine Gold Sets. And while I admire her upgrading the sets from glass to gold, I however would have gone another way with my mnemonic. Such as "Killer Penguins Chewed Off Franny's Green Shoes." But that's just me.

Feel free to post your mnemonic in the comments...but keep it clean please.

3 comments:

  1. Tried to post this earlier, but now it's gone. Trying again: Kingly Physicists Conquer Over Frilly Goofy Skaters

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  2. I know you're not talking about me, Your Majesty. :)

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  3. Kingsmen Prefer CLU Over Forgettable Godless Schools... how's that, Sis? ;)

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