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The short version: in Silver and the Forgetful Robot, each number from one to ten gets a rhyming word (one-bun, two-shoe, three-tree…). To remember a list, your child makes one silly picture joining each item to its rhyme word. Counting to ten then replays the pictures and brings the whole list back, in order. Psychologists call it a peg-word mnemonic, and it is one of the most tested memory techniques there is.
The story method is usually a child's first list trick: chain the items into one silly tale and let each scene pull up the next. It works beautifully, but chains have a weakness. Lose one link and everything after it can go quiet. The number-rhyme method is the upgrade. Every item hangs on its own numbered hook, so nothing depends on remembering what came before it, and your child even knows which item they've forgotten. Hook number six is empty? Something belongs on it.
The scene inside the book
Benny the Beaver is on the riverbank, gnawing a log and groaning. He can't remember all the tools he needs to finish his waterwheel before dark, and the tools aren't three or four items. They are ten: hammer, saw, screwdrivers, nails, measuring tape, paintbrushes, planks of timber, toolbox, wheelbarrow and blueprints. That is far beyond repeating-under-your-breath territory.
Simone knows what this calls for:
"Let's use the Number Rhyme Method. Once you learn it, you can remember any list of ten items!"
Step one is learning the code. Each number gets a word that rhymes with it: 1 is a bun, 2 is a shoe, 3 is a tree, 4 is a door, 5 is a hive, 6 is sticks, 7 is heaven, 8 is a gate, 9 is a lion, 10 is a hen. Because the words rhyme with the numbers, a child doesn't really have to memorise the code at all. Counting hands it to them.
Step two is where the book has the most fun: each rhyme word meets its tool in one vivid, ridiculous picture. The hammer smashes down on a giant cream bun, icing flying everywhere. A huge saw cuts a shoe perfectly in half. A tall tree grows screwdrivers for branches. A buzzing hive fills with bees measuring everything and squabbling about it. A lion parades through the forest balancing a wheelbarrow on his head, and a hen in a hard hat clucks seriously over the blueprints.
Step three is the recall test, and it is the child reading the book who takes it: picture your list from the bun to the hen, and tell Benny what he needs. When the waterwheel turns at sunset, Silver names what just happened: the Number Rhyme Superpower, usable on "school facts, groceries, chores, or anything at all."
This chapter is one of three choose-your-adventure missions in Silver and the Forgetful Robot, and the format matters. Your child doesn't watch a character use the number-rhyme method. They do the remembering themselves, mid-story, and get the win when Benny cheers that they found every tool. A technique a child has already succeeded with once is a technique they'll reach for again.
Why it works
Memory researchers call this a peg-word system: the rhymes are fixed "pegs", and each new item is hung on one. The one-bun, two-shoe rhyme scheme is the classic version, and cognitive psychologists have been testing it since the 1960s. In early experiments, researchers such as B. R. Bugelski found that adults given the rhyming pegs recalled ordered lists better than people who simply rehearsed them, provided they had a few seconds to actually build each mental picture. The pegs also solve the problem that plagues plain rehearsal: position. Because each item is tied to a number, order comes free.
The silly pictures aren't decoration either. Psychologists' research on imagery, including Allan Paivio's dual coding work, suggests we hold information more firmly when it is stored as both a word and a picture. A hammer flattening a cream bun is a phrase, an image and a joke at once, which gives a young brain three separate handles to pull it back by. And for a small child, the rhymes themselves do quiet extra work: one-bun, two-shoe has the sing-song bounce of a playground chant, which is a big part of why little ones take to it so quickly.
“The sillier, brighter, and more alive your picture is, the stronger your memory becomes.”
Silver and the Forgetful Robot is a superhero memory story for ages 3–7. Silver teaches a robot the real techniques memory champions use: silly connections, stories that link lists together, the memory palace, and the number-rhyme code your child can use on any list of ten.
View Silver and the Forgetful Robot on AmazonTrying the number-rhyme method at home
Unlike the story method, this one has a tiny bit of homework first: the pegs. The good news is that learning them is a game in itself.
1. Teach the pegs as a counting rhyme
Say them together on the way to school: "one is a bun, two is a shoe, three is a tree…" with actions if you like (munch the bun, stamp the shoe). Most children pick up the ten rhymes in a few playful runs because the rhyme does the remembering for them. In the book, Bright Spark learns the code before the mission starts, and that is the right order at home too.
2. Start with three pegs, not ten
For a first real list, use only bun, shoe and tree. Three items to remember for the shop, or three things to pack for school. Ten pegs is where the method eventually goes, and the book plays the full set, but three quick wins beat one overwhelming attempt.
3. Build each picture together, and make it silly
Item one has to collide with a bun somehow. Ask your child how, and take their answer over yours. If the first thing to remember is "library book", maybe the book is eating an enormous bun and getting crumbs in its pages. The book's own images are a masterclass in the right level of daft: eggs don't sit near the bun, a hammer smashes it flat while it squeals about its frosting.
4. Recall by counting
At the shop or the school gate, just count: "One is a bun… what's happening to the bun?" The number calls up the rhyme, the rhyme calls up the picture, the picture hands over the item. If a peg comes up empty, don't fill it. Give the peg a moment; knowing that something goes there is usually enough for the picture to come back.
5. Reuse the same pegs again and again
The pegs are permanent equipment. Tomorrow's list hangs on the same bun, shoe and tree, and the old pictures simply fade as new ones replace them. That is what makes this method such good value: learn the code once, use it for years.
Try this tonight. Learn the first three pegs at bedtime as a chant, then hang tomorrow morning's jobs on them: teeth on the bun, bookbag in the shoe, coat up the tree. In the morning, ask "what was on the bun?" instead of issuing reminders. You've swapped nagging for a game, and the game is doing real memory training.
What this does for a child who "always forgets"
Ten items is a genuinely impressive amount for anyone to hold in their head, and that is the quiet gift of this chapter. A child who helps Benny recall all ten tools has proof, from their own reading chair, that their memory is not small. It was just untrained. Where the story method shows them lists can be fun, the number-rhyme method shows them lists can be big, and still no match for a superhero with the right code.
The number-rhyme method is one of several techniques in Silver's memory training. The connection trick starts it all by linking one new fact to something familiar, the story method chains a short list into a silly tale, the memory palace attaches items to places your child knows well, the number-shape method is this technique's visual twin (a 2 becomes a swan, an 8 a snowman), and the 'watering' idea keeps every memory growing. This article is part of our bigger guide to helping your child focus and learn. For our pick of the books that genuinely build memory skills, see the best children's books to improve a child's memory, where Silver and the Forgetful Robot is our top pick, and memory games for kids for more ideas you can try at home.