Teaching students how to make a presentation

These slides have been used to teach as well as demonstrate on how to make an oral presentation. The idea is for teachers to use these slides to "present" on how to make a presentation.

Slides 2-4 are meant to be used as an effective opening tool to elicit a more explicit definition of what is meant by a "presentation" from the students. They are expected to include "speaking" and "to a group of people" as in the context of their assignment.

These slides also demonstrate how the students' slides are supposed to look like. My students are expected to use lots of interesting pictures, but not to cramp many of them into one slide. I encourage them to minimize text, since they are supposed to make their audience listen, not read.

This lesson has been inspired by www.presentationhelper.co.uk - that I'd really like to thank. I'd also like to thank google images for most of the interesting photos which they've gathered from various websites.

Three presentation essentials

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The Somalians' Plight: Let's be part of their solution...

This Ramadhan, unlike the previous ones, I don't really feel excited about eating. It's the 18th day of fasting, and I haven't even been to the Ramadhan Bazaar, not even once, can you believe it?

Every day I cook minimal food for sahur and iftar for my hubby, son and myself - something that we can finish there and then, hoping for no leftover food that I would have to throw away.

And this is because everyday I would see the pictures and read the plights of our brothers and sisters in Somalia... oh, how different their babies and children look compared to our chubby ones! How can we not respond to them and leave them suffering while we have so much food to savour and to waste?

So dear brothers and sisters, let's tone down our preparation for Eidul-fitr this year. We've already got a lot of clothes that we can still use in Syawal - well, we don't need 3 or 4 pairs per person in the family, do we? A new pair for the eid prayer is sufficient enough. And, do we need to have so many types of cookies on our table in Syawal? I've seen houses with more than ten, sometimes up to twenty different jars of cookies - which would still be there even after Syawal was over - not able to be finished.

Let's channel some of our budget to those who need it more than us. Not for them to enjoy celebrating Eidul-fitr the way we would, but for them to survive. Support Islamic Relief Malaysia's efforts to help save their lives.

Having fun with children - 10 cheapskate mum's ways!

Here are some of the things I've done with my kid (and borrowed kids) for the past two weeks (besides playing online games):

1. Reading aloud. Choose interesting books where our intonation and gestures can be varied while reading, as well as books that have a lot of interesting pictures that can lead into chats or discussions with the children. Some of the books that I love are ' Good Night, Gorilla' by Peggy Rathmann, 'I Love My Family' by Brimax, and 'The Napping House' by Audrey Wood, just to name a few. For a Malay book, 'Kuda Terbang Reza' by Halimah Badioze Zaman has proven to be very entertaining to children over and over again.

2. Finger painting. All we need are some pieces of white paper and poster colours. The rest are up to our creativity or the children's. They really love this activity. To avoid messing up your house or dirtying their clothes, do this outside your house i.e. at the porch on a mat, and cut some of those unused garbage plastic bags for the kids to wear outside their clothes.

3. Gardening. Mine wasn't any real gardening though. It was just the repotting of some plants. I bought a few bags of soil, uprooted some plants from the original pots, and planted them in bigger pots. The children loved helping me out, especially when they got to touch the soils, and to water the newly potted plants.

4. Vacuuming the floor. I don't know what is it that attracts the children to this machine. I used to think that they are a nuisance when it comes to me wanting to vacuum the floor and them wanting to help so hard. Nowadays, I would just let them do it until they are tired, then I would continue, but I would be careful about vacuuming again the spots that they had vacuumed - it's like saying, "You didn't do a good job." Be sensitive - kids have feelings, too.

5. Washing the dishes. Children love this! They get the feeling of being trusted by an adult (with all the breakable glasswares), being 'useful' and at the same time get a chance to play with water!

6. Train 'joy' riding. I parked my car at the commuter station in Bangi. No, we didn't actually steal anything here. Bought a return ticket to Nilai and there we went - on a train to and fro. You can actually go to a further station than the one you paid for, provided that you don't check out from the station. Neat! I think it would be more fun if we rode to KL Sentral instead, but I didn't want to spend too much time on the train.

7. Playground hopping. We went to one playground after another in the different parts or sections in our townships. Basically, they have the same things, like the see-saw, the swingset, the slides - but they come in different designs, and each park where the playground is set in, has a different environment. Oh, what a fun time we had!

8. Eating out. In my township, there's a bakery called 'Zaty's Bakery' which is a hit with any children I've taken there. They are spoiled with the choices of bread and danish they can have, plus they love the 'ice-cream goreng' (fried ice-cream) there. A good way to make non-eating child like mine eat! The bread are all less than RM2 each and the fried ice-cream is RM1.50 each.

9. "Tengok wayang" (watching movies). All we need are a DVD player and our TV set. Then, just put in the CD and relax with the kids.' My kids' love Sinchan, Tom and Jerry, and Mr Bean (the animated series) the most. Other hits are Toy Story, as well as Space Chimps.

10. Going to "pasar malam" (night market). Great choices of food for individual kids and a chance to buy some balloons. The handcrafted ones are sold at RM1.50 each at the night market in my housing area.