My sister, Karen Jensen, and I co-wrote a book, Living a Rich Life as a Stay-at-Home Mom: How to Build a Secure Financial Foundation for You and Your Children. She is an amazing mother and SAHM. When she told me that she had done a presentation at her children’s school for Career Day, I asked her to guest post about it. She tells her experience below and has even included the pages/powerpoint free download too!
Welcome Karen!
A few weeks ago my children came home all excited, showing me the blue papers inviting parents to participate in Career Day. I told them to talk to their father about it and see if he would do it. He was far less excited about it than they were…and I assumed our family would not be participating.
The next morning I woke up with a clear thought that I should do a Career Day presentation of everything I do as a Stay-At-Home Mom. I had heard of it being done before but for some reason I had never thought about doing it myself. Why not though? What more important work is there than raising children? So I sat down and wrote a quick list of jobs that I do as a Stay-at-Home Mom. The list kept growing until I ran out of room on the paper. I felt I could put together a quality presentation, so I filled out the blue paper and sent it in.
Our school has a lot of parent involvement so they pick and choose which participants they will invite. I wasn’t sure whether I would be invited or not. However, I soon received my acceptance letter and I began working on the presentation.When Career Day came I was a bit nervous, but I put on a confident front and faced my first class of first graders. It was so fun! They asked lots of questions and they loved seeing the pictures of my kids – their peers in school. My 20 minute presentation turned into 30 minutes and everyone seemed to enjoy it. I noticed that the teachers reaffirmed to their students what an important job I have, which made me feel good.
There were a few things I will do differently next time: I noticed many parents bringing the children something. A cop brought star stickers, a miner brought some coal, etc. I would definitely bring the kids something that goes along with my career – perhaps some homemade cookies or other treat.
Another thing I would do differently would be to create my presentation in PowerPoint. I have a Mac so I created it in Keynote and converted it to Powerpoint. However, some of the slides didn’t convert correctly. It wasn’t a huge issue, but since our school uses Powerpoint I would create it in that program to begin with.
The last thing I would do differently is come up with some kind of way to encourage interaction with the students. Perhaps giving them a reward if they ask a question or something. One class was very quiet and didn’t ask any questions. It’s always better with interaction.All in all it was a great experience and one I will do again in the future. I am attaching my presentation so you can get an idea of what I did. If you are interested in doing Career Day as a Stay-At-Home Mom, you are welcome to use it as a starting point for your own presentation. But, of course, it is very specific to me. You will have to add your own spice and flare to make it work for you. Also, don’t think you have to have a powerpoint presentation at all. The presentations I saw were all very different…as they should be.
And don’t think that your “career” is not worthy of presenting. As one of the slides in my presentation says “Children are not a distraction from important work, they are THE MOST important work.” C.S. Lewis
Happy Presenting!
IF THE LINKS DON’T WORK please send an email to [email protected] or comment below and I’ll email them to you ASAP. But please try the links first. Thanks.
Download Apple/Mac Key presentation by CLICKING HERE- This is a large file even though I tried compressing it.
Download Windows/Microsoft Power Point presentation by clicking here
Download PDF Presentation by clicking here
Get our book here Living a Rich Life as a Stay-at-Home Mom: How to Build a Secure Financial Foundation for You and Your Children.
Karen Jensen
I will have to remember this for the future when my daughters are in school! Great ideas!
Thank you its a great presentation.
HELP! Is there another way to download this presentation. I volunteered to do career day for my kids next week and I need some ideas! I am having troubling accessing this file of Box. 🙂
I will email it to you!!
Hi Jill! I emailed it to you!
I can’t seem to download .key files. Do you have your presentation in any other form?
Thanks!
Sent sorry it took awhile. It’s been very crazy around here.
Can you email it to me too? This looks fantastic. I’m presenting stay at home mom at my child’s career day!! Yikes!
Sent sorry it took awhile. It’s been very crazy around here.
Hi! Thank you for doing this!!! I was unable to download… Can you email it to me also!? THANKS!
Sent!
Can you email it to me also, asap, if possible? My daughter’s school just let me know they had a last minute cancelation for career day this Friday and that I could present being a SAHM – originally they told me all spots were filled, so I haven’t done any preparing of course!! I have a little more than 24 hours to pull this off. Thank you!!! 🙂
I sent it. Please let me know if you didn’t get it.
can you email it to me too? I am also doing a career day presentation!!!
i sent it. Let me know if you didn’t get it.
Could you please email this to me as well? Thank you!!
Nikki- I emailed you the file. Thanks for stopping by!
Great job! please do send me a copy too! Thanks!
I just emailed you the file. Thanks!
Hi! I’d love to have your presentation, but couldn’t download it either. Thanks!
I emailed you the file. Thanks for asking!
Can I have a copy?
Elise- I emailed you the file. Thanks for asking.
Can you email me copy? I applaud you on doing this and would love to view it.
Clairese- I emailed you the file. Thanks for asking!
Can I also receive an email with your PP presentation as it won’t download…
Thank you!
Annie- I emailed you the file. Thank you!
Would you please email this to me. Having a hard time downloading
RHarris- I emailed you the file. Thank you for asking!
I would love to receive a copy. Thank you!
Eileen- I emailed you the file. Thank you for asking!
Anita…could you please email me a copy as well?
I emailed you the file. Thank you!
Thank you so much for sharing this resource! I volunteered and am having major butterflies! This gives me a starting point and I am so grateful!
You’re welcome! I’d love to hear how it goes 🙂
I have my presentation on Friday. Couldn’t open any of the files. Would you be able to email them to me? I’m getting nervous, and I hope what I have so far is on the right track. Thanks for your help.
I’m so sorry I didn’t see this before. How did your presentation go? Were you able to download it in the end? Again I apologize. My Assistant usually looks at comments and emails people files if they have trouble downloading. I hope it went well and good for you!