How to memorize the taxonomic ranks

When I was in sixth grade I learned Sister Mary Helen Eats Onions.  This reminded me of the Great Lakes: Superior, Michigan, Huron, Eerie, Ontario.  It’s probably the only thing I remember from my sixth grade geography class.  Well that and one of the boys who got in trouble for sniffing Sharpies….. That is a completely different story.  We use mnemonics all the time to help us remember things.  When we studied zoology the kids and I learned a mnemonic to remember the taxonomic ranks for our science lesson.

King Philip Cried Out for Goodness Sake!

Kingdom Phyla Class Order Family Genus Species

Now there are other mnemonics to remember the taxonomic ranks, but we have a friend named Philip with one L, so that certainly helped us remember it.

Free Taxonomic Ranks Mnemonic printable

To make it even easier, I made a printable mini-poster. I’m sharing with you a couple of different version of this.

First the full page and half page color version of the taxonomic ranks mnemonic printable.  I like the full page version for sticking up on the wall for everyone to look at, and the half page version makes a great reminder to tape to the desk.  And for those who are curious, visible in this picture you can also see the writing notebook that was left out and the feet of Abraham Lincoln (if you’re reading this before May 25 go enter to win your own paper presidents).

And because I have to draw the whole thing out, that means I also have a black and white version, because I’ve learned to scan the black and white version in case I mess up my coloring.

I’ll get the black and white one up later.

Then because I wanted my kids to glue this in their notebooks, I’ve included in this a page that has four of the picture to a page.

Finally, I made it into a notebooking page, because ever since I figured out HOW to make notebooking pages quickly, I’ve been making them for everything.

Rather than make it 4 individual pages, which would be both annoying to upload and annoying for you to download, this is all available in the same taxonomic ranks mnemonic download.

Now that you’ve learned the taxonomic ranks mnemonic, let’s learn some more zoology

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