A few years back, I read in the book Cheaper by the Dozen (upon which the movies were based) about the eccentric and endearing Frank Gilbreth. It’s a memoir written by his children, and it’s fascinating, playful and funny. The father of this large family took efficiency to the extreme with hilarious results.
One of the things he did was post a mnemonic alphabet for Morse Code in the bathroom where it was easily studied while brushing one’s teeth. He then enticed his children to learn it by leaving them messages around the house randomly, sometimes with a hidden reward for the first person to discover and decipher the clues. Fairly soon, as the book describes, the children were tapping each other messages at the dinner table, and Morse code had become a fun and secret way for the family to communicate.
After a lot of digging, I unearthed a copy of the same mnemonic alphabet he used back then. I initially just used it occasionally to change up spelling practice, but I finally decided to post it on the wall last week. (Thanks, Quarantine, for inspiring all kinds of shenanigans around here!) I sprinkled a few messages, and within a couple of days two of my kids were “fluent” in Morse Code. I got the hang of it pretty quickly as well.
We’ve been leaving notes in odd places ever since.
Basically we learned by simply saying the word or phrase for each letter as we wrote or read notes. The word “so” is said “si si si OH MY GOSH” and is written . . . – – – because the dots are short, not emphasized and the dashes are emphasized. We learned by doing. The next step was to associate it with dits and dahs (it’ll make more sense if you download the sheet.)
Entertaining and useful! I dropped a link below in case you want to give it a try.
As for this lady… She hasn’t learned Morse Code yet, but I’m pretty sure she’s been sending us some sort of messages with dried beans. She’s been logging hours every day carefully scooping and pouring into buckets and onto the floor. Surely it must mean something?
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