Tuesday 17 February 2015

Post 17: Activity to generate search terms

How to teach students to generate search terms or keywords for their research projects

1. For younger children: (The purpose of this activity is to have students come up with synonyms and more and less specific terms.  You can then go on and have them try to generate search terms for an assignment they are working on.  My colleague in primary has used similar activities with students as young as 5.  I can see this also being used as a warm up activity with older students.)

  • using a photograph of a fruit and vegetable market stall on your IWB, ask children to name items,  places and people they see in photograph
  • make a list of them as you go along
  • have students come up with synonyms for the words they have generated
  • have them find more and less specific terms (i.e. man, woman, people, person, pedestrians, shoppers)
  • discuss
Kensington Market. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Web. 17 Feb 2015. 
Though there is only one person in this picture, on a IWB, students should be able to see the people reflected in the mirror below the sign.

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