All You Want to Know about Kindergarten Oral Presentations

People look at me like I’m crazy when I tell them that I have my students present throughout the year. Yes, public speaking in Kindergarten.

Mind blown.

They can actually do it…and they are amazing.

Here are reasons that I do oral presentations in my room:

1. Most adults can’t do it well and are less afraid of DYING than they are to get up and talk in front of their peers.

2. It teaches students (at an early age) the value of respecting their peers when they are speaking.

3. It builds confidence at an early age in ways that I could have never imagined.

4. It’s a skill that can be built on and refined throughout an entire school year.

5. It makes me cry every year.

Here are the 4 P’s of Presenting that we talk about before the first presentation:

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Before the first presentation is due (and I give them roughly 2-3 weeks notice so parents can practice with them at home), I do a model presentation of how I want them to speak. They do a thumbs-up/thumbs-down when I am showing one of the 4 P’s. I get on the carpet and make a fool of myself not following the “Polite Participation” P. They always think it is a big ball of fun when I’m rolling around and acting crazy. Then, we all practice showing the speaker polite participation.

I show these posters before every presentation and we talk about our strengths and weaknesses from the last time. Since this was our first one, we couldn’t reflect before..but we sure could after!

These are the rubrics that I mark on and send home to parents.

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 A lot of you have asked me if they prepare these at home. And the answer to that question is, yes. They work on it for a few weeks before they have to present at home. They create their own visuals (student created!!!!!…can’t stress that enough!).

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This can be done at school with some time carved out and teaching them how to practice with each other. As my husband always says, “It’s all about where you see value.”

This is somewhere that I see BIG major huge value.

They have a topic for each month:

September- My Family
October- My Favorite Place to Visit
November- My Family Traditions
December-My Favorite Movie
January- My Favorite Toy
February-Famous American
March- My Favorite Book
April- My Favorite Field Trip
May- Movin’ on Up

They all follow the same type of format: Hi my name is (blank), I’d like to tell you about (blank), here are three things (blankity-blank-blank)…thank you for listening to my presentation.

Feel free to come up with your own or you can click on the picture below to check it out from me.

This is one of my students in action from a few years back and it is still one of my very favorites.

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Try it!

See how it goes (and be prepared to be amazed)!

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Comments

  1. Jessica Stolz says:

    This is SUCH a wonderful idea!! Loved the Elvis presenter 🙂 thanks for sharing!

  2. I love this idea! Wondering how you handle the “babies”, the ones who have no support at home, the shy ones, and the non-verbals, all of which I have. I also have an ESL student with very limited English who would struggle with this.

  3. LOVE your idea of oral presentations each month! I did a few science projects last year that the students had to present to the class. I was very impressed with each student that presented, and how well the class listened and wanted to learn more from the “expert”. I completely agree that Kindergarteners are capable of this!
    Tickled Pink in Primary

  4. Terri Adams says:

    I have my Kinders present oral presentations, too! My favorite is in the spring we research and present Oviparous animals…I get chickens to giant octopus and everything in between. It is fantastic. Love your resources! Thanks.