jmizzou’s idea to help you remember the original 13 colonies is good. Here is another possibility:
Remember this bit of news:
News! News! News!
Mother reads carefully.
Now PMS gets very drastic.
The first letters of those words tells you the first letters in the names of the states:
N N N
M R C
N PMS G V D
New York! New Jersey! New Hampshire!
Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Conneticut.
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Maryland, South Carolina, Georgia, Delaware.
Welcome into the fold, my soon-to-be fellow American!
CJ, that’s interesting about dual citizenship. I didn’t know that. You are one smart American 
Where are you from originally?