Alternatives to Show and Tell

Show and tell is an important part of children's education. It provides students with an opportunity to share something important to them, work on organization of ideas and thoughts, and presentation skills.  It also helps children enhance their language and vocabulary skills, fielding questions from an audience and public speaking skills. These skills that they learn from show and tell help to form effective communication skills that they will build upon throughout their education. Although show and tell is important, it has been set aside in the current school year due to COVID. Many schools and school boards have adopted the rule that no outside items are allowed in the school besides items such as hats, mittens, jackets, school bags, etc.  As educators, we know that show and tell is important and we want to still reap the benefits of show and tell. What can teachers do as an alternative?

Some alternatives could be:

1.      See-Think-Wonder: A three step process where the teachers shows a picture to the students,  the students then start the conversation by discussing what they see, then they move to what they think is going on and then lastly what makes them wonder about the picture. They can share this as a large class, small group, or pairs.

2.      Art Gallery: Students create a piece of artwork, and then they take turns presenting their art work to the class. 
3.     Favourite Book:  Students take their favourite book from either the classroom or the school library and present it to class. In their presentation, they would provide a brief synopsis of the book (appropriate to grade level), then discuss why they chose it and what they really like about the book and anything else they would like to add. Their peers would then have the chance to ask them questions about the book. 
4.      Special Talent person of the week: Each week a student is in the spotlight where they would present a special talent to the class. The student would be able to share the talent, why it is important to them and anything else they may want to add. They would then have the opportunity to field questions from the audience on their talent.   

There are many alternatives and many more alternatives not noted above that still provide students with        the opportunity to share, work on their presentation and communications skills while being COVID friendly.

References:

Wladich, A. (2014, January 6). The importance of 'show and tell'. EDU. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://edublog.scholastic.com/post/importance-show-and-tell.

Barbara. (2016, August 23). Why I don't do show and tell Anymore " Grade Onederful. Grade Onederful. Retrieved September 30, 2021, from https://www.gradeonederful.com/2016/08/why-i-dont-do-show-and-tell-anymore.html.

Courtesy of Roseann C@NU