Education. Holiday presentation projects by kids. They choose, they talk.

We have just started Term 2, and with 3 weeks off over Christmas and New Year, the students had plenty of time to create a holiday project.

In the mind of a teacher- a little holiday homework never hurt anyone! In order to develop public speaking in class, a holiday project was given with simple instructions- 1. Choose any topic you like, 2. create a display board to represent the key aspects of that topic, and 3. prepare a 3 minute talk about it.

The students left school on the last Friday before the holiday excited and full of original ideas. Upon returning I was probably just as excited to listen to them all. Projects ranged from, The Seashore, Space, Horse Riding, Thunder, Lava Lamps and Ocean Depths to name just a few.

With some guidelines on how to build a project display, the children exceeded my expectations. No doubt with a little help from home- but for a 7-8 year old this is expected and it also encourages an active learning environment at home.

As you can see from the photos, the guidelines were followed- bright colourful titles, easy to read text and keywords. A mix of pictures that may include, drawings, painting, photos, print outs or magazine cutouts. Most importantly, a clear order to the the layout and flow of information.

Many of the students opted to hand write the information they researched instead of just sticking down printed Google searches.

3D effects were added to some displays to emphasize the theme. Coral and underwater plant life had been glued onto this project about the depths of the ocean.

A recent visit to a Bangkok butterfly farm inspired this student. The stages of a butterflies life cycle and the changes/transformations they go through were explained thoroughly.

The Displays were amazing and now decorate the hallways around the Primary block, but the main part of the holiday homework was to prepare a presentation. I had told them a 3 minute minimum was expected- in truth 2 minutes would have been a good start for a first time presentation.

I had informed the class that they would be marked on 3 main categories- confidence in which they spoke, including they volume they spoke at and body posture (no hiding behind the boards or speaking to the floor!). The flow and order of content- did they have an introduction, logical steps that explained their topic and were keywords/technical words made clear to those that may not understand them. Marks were also awarded to students that could demonstrate true understanding for their topic. Q and A at the end of the talks allowed the student to prove if they did really understood their project or if it was just memorised sentences.

To summarize the quality of the presentations, no student spoke for less than 4 minutes! Filler words and pauses such as, umms and ahhs were almost non existent- they had practised and they were all prepared.

One presentation about lava lamps even included a step by step instructional demonstration on how to build you own at home. A mix of water, oil, food colours and fizzy Alka-Seltzers were all you needed. A volunteer from the class helped with the presentation and the 'how-to' was a great addition.

Shells stuck on to the Seashore project interested the class and quickly taught some basic shell names of common shells found along Thai beaches- even teachers learn something new!

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