John Presents About the Titanic

Today John (5-3/4) gave his first "real" presentation at Catholic Schoolhouse. The children are required to give a presentation every fourth week, and it's encouraged for them to do something beyond show-and-tell of their toys. John gave a presentation about Beethoven on the first day of school, but he had no clue what a "presentation" is--and the results showed! Then when he was due to give his next presentation (on Christopher Columbus), he was sick that day. So today was the day!

I hadn't seen any of the other children's presentations given in weeks because I'd been assigned Art Helper for three weeks (so wasn't helping in John's class), then we were on vacation one week, and sick two weeks  so I didn't know what to expect . . . .


I was so pleased with the comfort John showed presenting his material. Knowing how very shy he was at two and three years old, I didn't think he could speak this way at five years old in front of a crowd.

The audio is a bit low--except for the sound of Margaret making noises asking for pretzels and my rustling in the bag to give her some so she'd be quiet. This is the transcript of John's presentation (most useful when trying to hear Mary's presentation below):

"One hundred years ago, people thought the Titanic was an unsinkable ship. But it wasn’t! On its first trip, it hit an iceberg. Fifteen hundred people died when the Titanic sank."

Of course, Mary (3-3/4) wants to be just as big as John and she has a competitive streak, so she memorized his presentation while listening to him practice for two days. Then she drew her own illustration and requested that she be able to give her presentation to her nursery teacher at Catholic Schoolhouse. (Except for saying "fifteen-sixteen" instead of "fifteen hundred," she had it memorized!)

Mary spelled 'Titanic' herself. The picture is of the ship with three smokestacks surrounded by waves, with a stick person and a sun above.