Great ideas come from everywhere. It’s just a matter of being ready and willing to grab an idea, modify it to your needs, and go with it.

We had a need in my classroom. We needed great mnemonics to help the kids remember how to correctly spell frequently used but creatively spelled words. Like the word “because.” Most students had settled into spelling it “bicuz,” but we had more variations on the spelling of that one word than Paula Deen has ways to cook with butter. I was on the hunt for a great idea alright.

The Inspiration

The idea came from a comment made by character Patrick Jayne on an episode of the TV show The Mentalist.  It was intended as a wise crack, but I took it for the gift it was. Jayne snidely remarked to another character on the show “Big elephants can always understand small elephants.”

He had just smirked a mnemonic for the word “because.”

Thank you, writers of The Mentalist!

In the classroom, I created a backstory for the phrase, “Big elephants can always understand small elephants.” It needed a memory link, or the students wouldn’t remember what it was that could help them remember how to spell “because.” I borrowed heavily from Babar and other wise old elephants in children’s literature and came up with this yarn.

The Backstory

The little elephants of the village had tangled their trunks and tails playing soccer. Again. This time none of them could get free to help the others. So they did what they always did when in a fix of their own making. They called for Granddaddy Elephant. He laid aside his pipe, kindly lumbered over, sorted out kinks in tails and knots in trunks, telling stories of his boyhood escapades to keep the little elephants from wiggling as he worked. When they thanked him for his kindness to them, he looked fondly from one to another and told them, “That’s ok. Big elephants can always understand small elephants. I was a small once too, you know.”

Brain Glue

Now for some artwork to glue the story on its mental peg in each young brain. Grey elephants were cut from construction paper to be Granddaddy and glued to yellow construction paper. Small elephants in all manner of tangles were stamped onto the page, with speech bubbles asking for help. Down the side, in big letters, “because” was spelled out, and written across from each letter was the word from the mnemonic phrase, “Big elephants can always understand small elephants.”

Did it stick?

Yup, they still remember it! We went through that exercise about a year ago. Recently the students were writing journal stories, and I could hear one softly whispering to himself, “Big elephants can always understand small elephants” as he wrote. His neighbor smiled and commented how much he loved that story, and it helped him spell the word correctly. A girl who is new to the group asked to be told the story, and her classmates happily obliged.

Why did this work? Because. Because small stories can be used to solve big problems.