SONGS AS MNEMONICS

People in my generation know what year the battle of New Orleans was fought. We simply remember the first line of a Johnny Horton hit song. “In 1814, we took a little trip along with Colonel Jackson down the mighty Mississip.”

Johnny Horton had an entire album of songs about history, “October 1871, that’s when this great big fie begun.” It was easy to learn history from Johnny Horton.

Many years later Tom Lehrer sang about the “Elements.” Hundreds of kids memorized the lyrics and the elements. Gosh that was fun. And while singing along with Lehner or with their friends, kids didn’t even have to use chaining or pegging.

In my record collection, I have an album that includes campaign songs from each president and another album that includes campaign songs from some of the presidential losers. Google songs about history. A huge list will come up.

There are songs about adverbs, adjectives, nouns and even pronouns. On the old "Mickey Mouse Club" television program, Jiminy Cricket sang about the "ENCYCLOPEDIA." He spelled out the letters.

The days of having to buy these albums are over, thanks to Youtube, where you can find most of the songs I mentioned and more.