Someone asked for help with presentations at

things like our Science/History Night. I am no

expert but with five girls and with home schooling

for roughly 17 years we have had lots of presentations

to do. Sometimes I have helped the girls be creative

and sometimes it just didn’t happen. So what I am

writing now are things that would happen when I did

things the way I should.  Also, since we only had four families participate this year in our Science/History Night, I thought I would try to encourage others to get an early start on next year.

I like for my girls to have interesting presentations since I enjoy listening to them practice it more. ~ smile. I think the kids enjoy doing it more too. They gain more self confidence when they get positive feed back from their audience.

My main suggestion, I speak from experience here, don’t wait until the week before the presentation to get your child to pick their topic. As you go through the school year look for topics. Allow your child to choose a topic in which he is interested. When you come across something that catches your child’s interest let him stay there a while instead of pressing on to finish your text book. Spend time reading and researching the topic. Get other books on the subject. Look up things on the internet about the subject. Talk to people who know about the subject if possible.

Don’t let the topic be too broad. Like if my girls said they wanted to do a presentation on horses we would have to narrow that down. We could do breeds of horses or pick a famous race horse.

Once you have your subject, how can you have a good presentation? The simple answer is- be creative. I know schedules are busy and there are other things to do. Just take 10- 20 minutes and brainstorm with your kids about how their presentation can be more than just a report that you read to the audience. I usually get my girls to sit with me and we just talk about their subject and how we can make it interesting. Some of our ideas may be a little off the wall but we just need to get them thinking outside the box. Sometimes our creativity just isn’t there or we just don’t have the time, I understand, but at least try. You can keep it simple and still be creative.

One of my favorite presentations was when on of my girls, Anna, wanted to do a presentation on her insect collection. Just pointing to insects and telling about them can get boring, so we did some brainstorming. Several of the girls helped us think about it. After everyone started giving their input we came up with the idea for Anna to dress up like an insect and show off her “unfortunate relatives”. We had fun writing her speech about how her Aunt Monty ( aka monarch butterfly) was so beautiful and how she loved to travel. She told about her Cousin Twiggy, the walking stick and others. Anna got excited about her science project presentation and it didn’t take a lot of time or energy to do it.

Dressing up like a historical character is always fun. You don’t have to have the perfect costume. Let the kids get it together. They learn more this way. It also helps to have props to go with your outfit too.

Use visual aids to let your audience see what you are talking about. For example saying an albatross’ wing span is 12 feet doesn’t mean much until you roll out a string 12 feet long. That gets people’s attention. You can also use posters, diagrams, and power point presentations.

Another thing my girls always enjoyed doing was making their presentation an interview. This can work for Science/ History talks or Geography Night. Have one child be from a certain country or a person in history and the other child the interviewer. You could even do this with science and have one child do an experiment that the other child questions him about.

 A couple  of other suggestions are : have your child ask the audience questions in his presentation or in some way get the audience involved  to make it more interesting. Using humor can keep peoples attention too.

Keep the presentation short and to the point. Make sure your child practices his speech at home until he is comfortable with it. If you are pressed for time, they can give the speech to a sibling or dad or a grandparent. You can listen while you are cooking supper or doing other things if you are really busy.

I am not always creative and I don’t always have my kids put the time into a presentation that we should but it sure makes a difference when we do. We all enjoy the process a lot more and they learn more.

Please add your suggestions.

• Post A Comment! • Send to a Friend!