Expand your Keyword List

With a little help from the 2nd Grade Teacher!

I got to visit my daughter's second grade classroom yesterday. The teacher designed some activites that parents could help groups of kids with. The topic was synonyms. You know, words that mean the same thing, like fast and quick, or cold and chilly.

She gave each kid a drawing of a bowl, each with a different word on it. Then, they needed to come up with 2-3 words that meant the same thing, and write them on ice cream scoops. (yummmm, ice cream!).

The words were harder than I expected... I was having a hard time helping the kids, as I thought they were supposed to think of words they knew. Until, the teacher gave each group a thesaurus, saying this was a chance for the kids to learn new words. I quickly (rapidly?) started flipping through to find each child's word.

And then it hit me.... *I* could use a thesaurus - not to learn new words, but to think of new keywords!

Ive always used the keyword clothes, and later added clothing. The thesaurus mentioned attire, apparel, fashions, garb, wardrobe, and wear. None of those words are new to me.... but I certainly have not been using them. I think attire and apparel deserve some investigation - they just had not occurred to me before.

There are thesaurus sites on the web, such as http://thesaurus.reference.com/. But, I think I'm going to petition for a paperback edition this forthcoming Holiday Interval.

Perhaps you will too! Finding new ways to find new keywords is smart selling.

Enjoy! Cindy