Instead of show and tell… discover and question

Bad teacher alert.

I hate show and tell.

It’s not that I don’t love children sharing their items or talking about their lives.

But the problem is that half my time is trying to get the kid doing the showing to be succinct while trying to keep the rest of the class listening and respectful.

So I threw it out.

Instead if kids have things they want to show and tell they leave them on a table at the beginning of the day. The children then put their questions and have a chance to talk with the child about their item.

I love this twist for several reasons:

You can have more than one child showing at a time. This takes the pressure off the child sharing in front of a large group and enables more interaction from the audience.

The kids are up and moving rather than sitting and listening.

Giving time for children to write questions helps make the interactions more purposeful.