The memory palace for kids: a step-by-step guide

What is a memory palace?

A memory palace is a place you know well, like your home, that you use as a storage space for things you want to remember. You picture a walk through it, and at each stop along the way you leave a picture of something to remember. Later, you take the same walk in your mind and “collect” the pictures again, in order.

Its official name is the method of loci; loci is Latin for “places”. An old story says it was discovered by the Greek poet Simonides about 2,500 years ago. He left a banquet just before the roof fell in, and he could name every guest because he remembered where each one had been sitting. Places, he realised, are wonderful hooks for memories. Today the same method is used by memory champions, who remember whole decks of cards with it.

The best part for families: you don’t need anything. Your house is already a perfect palace.

Why it works

Our brains are brilliant at two things: remembering places and remembering pictures, especially strange ones. They are much worse at remembering lists of words or numbers. Try it: you could walk through your home with your eyes closed, but you probably can’t repeat a list of ten random words you heard once.

The memory palace turns the hard job into the easy one. The walk through your home gives you a ready-made order, so nothing gets mixed up. The silly pictures give your brain something unusual to notice, and unusual things stick. Each place becomes a hook, and each hook holds one thing.

It works for grown-ups too. In a 2017 study published in the journal Neuron, adults who had never used the method practised it for about half an hour a day for six weeks, and more than doubled the number of words they could remember from a long list.

Build your first memory palace at home

For a first try, five places and five things are plenty. Do it together; it takes about ten minutes.

1. Choose a route. Pick five places in the order you would walk past them: for example the front door, the hallway, the kitchen table, the sofa and your bed. Always use the same order.
2. Walk it for real. Walk the route and say each place out loud. Then close your eyes and walk it again in your head.
3. Pick a list. Start with a short shopping list: bananas, milk, eggs, toothpaste, carrots.
4. Leave one silly picture at each place. Make each one big, moving and a bit ridiculous (see the route below).
5. Walk back and collect. Close your eyes and walk the route: “What’s at the front door?” Most kids are amazed at how easily the pictures come back.
6. Show off. Now say the list backwards: just walk the route the other way. Try again after dinner, and again tomorrow.

Tips for silly pictures that stick

The pictures are where the magic happens. Boring pictures fade; silly ones stay. A few rules kids love:

• Make it huge. Not a banana, a banana as big as the door.
• Make it move. Things that dance, explode, squirt or sing are easier to remember than things that just sit there.
• Make it impossible. A carrot snoring in bed is memorable exactly because it could never happen.
• Use all the senses. What does it sound like? Smell like? Is it sticky, cold, loud?
• Make it touch the place. The picture should do something with the place, like ringing the doorbell, not just stand next to it.
• Let your child invent it. Pictures your child makes up stick much better than the ones you suggest. Your job is to ask “And then what happens?”

Some words are hard to picture. Turn them into something that sounds similar: Neptune becomes a net that plays a tune, and because becomes a bee causing chaos.

Chunking: a trick for numbers

Long numbers are hard because each digit is a separate thing to remember. Most grown-ups can hold about 7 digits in their head and most 8-year-olds about 5. Chunking cheats that limit: you group the digits into bigger pieces.

149217761 → 149 217 761

Nine separate digits become three chunks, and three things are easy. It is why phone numbers are written in groups. Chunks are even stronger when they mean something: a house number, a birthday, a sports shirt. (Grown-ups may spot two famous years hiding in that number: 1492 and 1776.)

To remember a really long number, combine the tricks: turn each chunk into a picture and put it in your palace.

Story linking: when you don’t have a palace handy

Story linking connects each thing to the next one with a silly action, like a chain. For the same shopping list: the banana dives into a glass of milk, the milk splashes over the eggs, the eggs hatch chicks who brush their teeth with toothpaste, and the toothpaste turns into a long orange carrot. To remember, start at the banana and follow the story.

Story links are great for short lists and for younger children, because a story is easy to tell. For longer lists the palace wins: if one link in a story breaks, everything after it can get lost, but in a palace every place is a fresh start.

Practising with lists of 10, 20 and 30

Once five places feel easy, grow the palace to ten places. Add rooms in walking order: the bathroom, a bedroom, the stairs, the garden, the mailbox.

• Lists of 10: one thing per place.
• Lists of 20: two things per place, for example one on the left and one on the right.
• Lists of 30: three spots per place: left, middle and right.

Start with pictures, then move to words. Test straight away, again after a snack and again the next day. Five minutes a few times a week is plenty, and counting how many your child remembers in order makes progress easy to see. You can reuse the same palace: new pictures simply replace old ones. Many kids also enjoy building a second palace, at grandma’s house or at school.

Can kids really beat grown-ups?

At remembering lists, often yes. A grown-up who has never learned a technique usually remembers about 7 things in order from a list they saw once. A child who has practised the memory palace can often remember 10 in order, and some go on to 20 or 30.

Be honest with your child about why. It isn’t because children have bigger memories; on plain memory tests, most adults still do better than most 8-year-olds. It is because a good method beats raw memory. That is a lovely lesson in itself: getting better at something is about how you practise, not about being born clever.

It also means the rematch is fair: once your child teaches you the palace, you will improve too. And it is list memory, not general intelligence. The trick doesn’t make anyone smarter at everything, but it is genuinely useful for spelling lists, packing lists, speeches and school facts.

Tips by age

Ages 6–7

Start with 3–5 places and real objects or pictures you can hold. Walk the route physically, holding hands, and make up the silly pictures together. Story linking with three or four things is a perfect warm-up.

Ages 8–9

Most children this age can handle a 10-place palace and invent their own pictures. Use it for real things: what to pack for a school trip, or the order of the planets. Start chunking phone numbers and house numbers.

Age 10 and up

Try 20 or 30 places, a second palace, and school facts: the main points of a talk, dates in history (chunking helps) or a list of vocabulary words. Teaching a younger sibling is the best practice of all.

At every age

Keep it playful, stop while it is still fun, and praise the strategy (“What a funny picture, no wonder you remembered it!”) rather than the score. Never turn it into a test under pressure.

How MindRocket’s Memory Palace Academy teaches it

In MindRocket, Bip the robot teaches all of this step by step, spoken aloud, so children who don’t read yet can follow:

1. Chunking: 149217761 becomes 149 / 217 / 761. Afterwards, the Number Rocket game shows long chains in groups of three.
2. Story links: two things become one silly picture.
3. The memory palace: a cartoon house with ten places in walking order: the garden, front door, kitchen, living room, bathroom, bedroom, attic, roof, garage and mailbox.

Then children practise with lists of 10 pictures or words. Remembering 8 of 10 opens lists of 20, and 16 of 20 opens lists of 30. At first Bip suggests a silly picture for each place (“A giant banana is dancing in the garden!”); later, children make their own. Finally, Teach a Grown-up lets your child explain the palace to you, and then you race.

Open the AcademyAbout Memory Palace Academy

Curious about the other skills? See all 11 MindRocket games or read what makes good brain games for 8 year olds.