A demonstration speech teaches the audience to do one thing by doing it in front of them, step by step, with the real object in your hands. It is show, don't tell taken literally. The 100 demonstration speech topics below are grouped by kind, and each one says what to bring or what the room will watch for. Pick one you could do with shaking hands, then use the steps at the end to turn it into a timed outline.
Food and drink (no stove needed)
Food holds a room because everyone wants to know whether it worked. Use the cooking-show swap: do each stage live, then bring out the version you finished at home.
- How to make guacamole. Bring one ripe avocado and one hard one, and show how to tell them apart before you cut.
- How to make butter by shaking cream in a jar. Pass jars of heavy cream around and let the audience do the shaking.
- How to make overnight oats. Mix tonight's jar in front of the class, then open the one you made yesterday.
- How to cut a mango into a hedgehog. Score each cheek into a grid and push the skin inside out. The reveal does the work.
- How to roll a cucumber and avocado sushi roll. A bamboo mat, a sheet of nori and rice cooked at home.
- How to fold three dumpling shapes. Store-bought wrappers and a simple filling make a half-moon, a pleated crescent and a purse.
- How to build a cheese board. Cheeses first, then bowls, then fill the gaps, so the board looks full with less food.
- How to make pour-over coffee. Show the bloom and the slow pour. Ask first whether you can plug in a kettle.
- How to pipe three cupcake finishes. One bag, three tips: a swirl, a rosette and grass.
- How to pack a salad in a jar that stays crisp. Dressing on the bottom, sturdy vegetables next, leaves on top.
- How to make no-bake energy bites. Oats, nut butter and honey rolled into balls. Sunflower seed butter keeps the room nut-free.
- How to dice an onion like a line cook. Halve it, keep the root on, cut both ways, then slice across. Knife rules apply.
- How to balance a pitcher of lemonade. Make it too sour on purpose, fix it in front of the class, and say the ratio you landed on.
Home and everyday skills
These win on usefulness. Half the room will try one the same week, and most need nothing but the object itself.
- How to fold a fitted sheet into a flat square. Tuck the corners into each other first. Everyone has fought this sheet.
- How to fold a T-shirt in two seconds. The pinch-and-flip fold looks like a magic trick until you slow it down.
- How to tie a four-in-hand knot. Stand side-on so the room sees your hands, or tie it on a volunteer.
- How to sew on a button that stays on. Practice on felt with a big needle and yarn, and wind a thread shank under the button.
- How to wrap a box with almost no tape. The diagonal Japanese wrap sets the box on one corner of the paper.
- How to remove a fresh stain from cotton. Stain two swatches at home, treat one live, and hold them side by side.
- How to pack a carry-on for a week. Show the pile, then roll, stack and zip it into one bag.
- How to hang a frame level on the first try. Mark the hanging points on painter's tape, move the tape to the wall, and nail through it.
- How to make a bed with hospital corners. A couch cushion and a crib sheet shrink the bed to tabletop size.
- How to polish leather shoes. Clean, condition, polish, buff. Bring one finished shoe and one scuffed.
- How to repot a root-bound houseplant. Tease out the roots and pick a pot only one size larger.
- How to grow a pothos from a cutting. Cut just below a node, set it in water, and bring one that rooted weeks ago.
- How to read laundry care symbols. Bring three garment tags and a printed key, then let the room decode the last tag.
Arts, crafts and making
Crafts give your hands something to do while you talk, which steadies nerves. Scale up anything small: oversized paper, thick yarn, or a phone on a stand feeding the projector.
- How to fold an origami crane. Use the largest square you can find, and have a pre-folded base ready for the slow middle.
- How to make an eight-page zine from one sheet. Fold, make one cut, refold. Everyone can try it with printer paper.
- How to fold a paper airplane that glides. Fly a dart and a wide-winged glider across the room and compare the flights.
- How to hand-letter a word with a brush pen. Thin strokes going up, thick strokes coming down. Letter your school's name.
- How to draw a face in proportion. The eyes sit halfway down the head. Draw the guidelines first, then the face.
- How to draw a street in one-point perspective. One horizon line, one vanishing point, and every building lines up to it.
- How to tie a chevron friendship bracelet. Tape the strings to the table and pick colors that contrast from a distance.
- How to finger-knit a scarf. Chunky yarn and no needles, so the audience can follow along with their own hands.
- How to bind a booklet with a pamphlet stitch. Three holes, one needle and one length of thread.
- How to make a pop-up card. Two parallel cuts across the fold make a step that rises when the card opens.
- How to fold a spiral tie-dye shirt. Twist and band it live, skip the dye, and reveal a shirt you finished at home.
- How to twist a balloon dog. Bring spares. One will pop, and the audience will like you more for it.
- How to paint a wet-on-wet watercolor sky. Wet the paper, drop in color, and let it spread while you explain why it does.
Tricks, games and physical skills
Here you are the prop, which makes these the easiest topics to carry to school. Teach in small progressions and let the room try each one.
- How to juggle three balls. One ball, then two, then the three-ball cascade. Beanbags don't roll away.
- How to solve the white cross on a Rubik's Cube. The first stage of the beginner's method, and a complete win in a short slot.
- How to riffle-shuffle and bridge a deck. Slow the riffle down, then add the bridge that makes it look professional.
- How to do a card trick. Perform it once, then do it again slowly and show the method.
- How to fingerspell your name in American Sign Language. Teach a handful of letters, then have everyone spell their initials.
- How to dance the salsa basic step. Count it in eights, and get the room on its feet for the last round.
- How to throw a backhand frisbee. Grip, stance and the flick of the wrist. Take the final throw outside.
- How to beatbox a basic beat. Start with "boots and cats," then drop the vowels until it sounds like drums.
- How to do a desk stretching routine. A short sequence the class can do sitting down, between two lectures.
- How to win in four moves with Scholar's mate, and stop it. Use a demo board or a projected one.
- How to play four chords on the ukulele. C, A minor, F and G cover a surprising number of pop songs.
- How to throw a yo-yo sleeper. Most other yo-yo tricks start from this one.
Phone, computer and online skills
Screen demos fail on small text and stray notifications. Make the font huge, turn on do not disturb, and use a demo account, never your real one.
- How to turn on two-factor authentication. Walk through it on a demo account, then show what signing in looks like afterward.
- How to spot a phishing email. Write a fake one yourself and find the tells with the audience: sender, links, urgency.
- How to search with operators. Quotes for an exact phrase, a minus sign to exclude a word,
site:for one website. - How to make a QR code for a flyer. Make one live that links to your slides and let the room scan it.
- How to back up your phone's photos. Show one method for iPhone and one for Android, or the one most of the room uses.
- How to take a better photo with your phone. Turn on the grid, tap to focus, slide to adjust exposure. Show before and after.
- How to make a stop-motion clip. A phone on a stand, a free app and some clay. Shoot a few frames live, then play the finished one.
- How to edit a short video on your phone. Trim it, add captions and export it, all in the built-in editor or a free app.
- How to turn a spreadsheet into a chart. Start with ugly data, end with a labeled chart, and keep the whole thing under two minutes.
- How to build a one-page website. One HTML file open in a browser. Change a line, refresh, and the page changes.
- How to make a strong passphrase with dice. Roll for words from a printed Diceware list, and never use the demo phrase for real.
- How to send personal letters to a list with mail merge. A spreadsheet of names, one letter, and the merged results.
Study, money and college life
Classmates are the audience, so these topics get used afterward. Bring a real artifact to work from: a printed calendar, a cereal box, a sample pay stub you made up.
- How to take Cornell notes. Play a two-minute clip and have everyone fill in the format with you.
- How to run a flashcard box. In the Leitner system, cards you get right move up a box and come back less often. Misses go back to box one.
- How to plan backward from an exam date. Start at the exam and block study sessions back to today on a printed calendar.
- How to study with the Pomodoro technique. Bring a tomato-shaped kitchen timer, the kind the method is named after.
- How to find a peer-reviewed article. Search your library's database live and switch on the peer-reviewed filter.
- How to build a bibliography with Zotero. Save a source from the browser, then drop a formatted citation into a paper.
- How to annotate a poem. Project a short poem and mark sound, images and the turn in three colors.
- How to calculate a tip in your head. Move the decimal for 10 percent, double it for 20, halve it for 5.
- How to read a nutrition label. Compare two cereal boxes and find the catch in the serving size.
- How to read a pay stub. Walk an invented stub from gross pay through each deduction to net pay.
- How to build a monthly budget. A zero-based budget in a spreadsheet, using an invented student's numbers.
- How to introduce yourself at a career fair. A volunteer plays the recruiter: handshake, name, one line about you, one question.
Science demonstrations
Small experiments work because the audience is waiting for a result. Explain the science in a sentence at each stage, and wear goggles whenever a liquid could splash.
- How to extract DNA from a strawberry. Dish soap, salt and cold rubbing alcohol pull white strands out of a mashed berry.
- How to build a density column. Pour honey, dish soap, water and vegetable oil into a tall glass, in that order.
- How to make a lava lamp. Oil, colored water and a fizzing antacid tablet in a clear bottle.
- How to make a compass. Stroke a needle with a magnet, float it on a slice of cork, and watch it swing north.
- How to build a Cartesian diver. A plastic bottle and a ketchup packet. Squeeze, and the diver sinks.
- How to test acids and bases with red cabbage. Cabbage water turns pink in vinegar and blue-green in baking soda water.
- How to make elephant toothpaste. Drugstore hydrogen peroxide, dish soap and yeast, with goggles on and a tray underneath.
- How to make slime and explain polymers. Glue, baking soda and contact lens solution. Say what links the chains.
- How to bend water with a balloon. Rub the balloon on your hair and hold it near a thin stream poured from a bottle.
- How to hold water in an upside-down glass. A card over the rim stays put. Air pressure does the work.
- How to light an LED with a coin battery. Slip the battery between the legs, then flip it to show polarity.
- How to split light with an old CD. A flashlight and a disc in a dim room throw a spectrum. Explain why the grooves do it.
- How to grow crystals. Mix a salt or borax solution live, then show crystals you started days earlier.
Safety, first aid and the outdoors
First-aid topics need a source. Teach from current American Red Cross or American Heart Association guidance and say so in the speech. If you hold a certificate, mention it. That is your credibility line.
- How to do hands-only CPR. Use a practice manikin if your school has one, and walk through the steps in the order your source gives them.
- How to put someone in the recovery position. A volunteer on a mat, one move at a time.
- How to use an epinephrine auto-injector. Trainer devices have no needle. Show the grip, the thigh and the hold time printed on the device.
- How to pack a first-aid kit for a backpack. Lay out every item and say what each one is for.
- How to lift a heavy box safely. A box of books: knees bent, load close to the body, turn with your feet.
- How to use a fire extinguisher. The PASS steps (pull, aim, squeeze, sweep) with a training or empty unit.
- How to tie a bowline. The loop that holds under load and still unties. Use thick rope so the back row can follow.
- How to check a car's tire pressure and tread. A tire gauge, a penny, and a photo of the pressure sticker in the driver's door frame.
- How to take a bearing with a map and compass. A printed local map and a baseplate compass for each pair.
- How to read contour lines. Build a clay hill, slice it into layers, and trace each layer to draw the map.
- How to lay a campfire. Tinder, kindling and fuel in a teepee and a log cabin. No flame needed to make the point.
- How to change a bike inner tube. Bring the wheel, not the bike.
Turn a topic into a speech
A topic becomes a demonstration speech once it has a purpose, named stages and a time budget. The general method is in how to write a speech. These steps cover what changes when your hands are busy.
- Narrow it to one result
"How to cook" is a semester. "How to fold three dumpling shapes" is a speech. Write your purpose as one sentence that starts "By the end, you will be able to…" If you cannot finish that sentence, the topic is still too big.
- Do it once and record every move
Run the whole process with a timer going and narrate into a voice memo. Transcribe it, then group the moves into three to five stages with short names: pour, shake, rinse.
- Plan the swap
Anything that waits (dough rising, paint drying, oats soaking overnight) gets a finished version hidden under the table. Cooking shows do this every episode, and nobody minds.
- Write the talk around your hands
Open with a hook and one line on why you know this, the ethos part of your appeal, then name what is on the table. Before each move, tell the room what to watch for. Write a sentence for every silent stretch: "While this sets, here is why it works."
- Rehearse with the real props
Run it at least twice with everything on the table, timed. Hands are slower in front of an audience, so finish the last rehearsal well under the limit, and decide now what you will say when something spills.
Purpose. By the end, you will be able to turn a carton of heavy cream into butter with nothing but a jar.
On the table. Heavy cream, four clean jars with lids, a strainer, a bowl of cold water, salt, and one jar already shaken to whipped cream in the hallway.
- 0:00 Opening. Hold up a jar of cream: "This is butter. It just doesn't know it yet." One line on where you learned it, then the three stages: shake, separate, rinse.
- 0:40 Shake. Fill the jars no more than half full so the cream has room to move, and hand them to four volunteers.
- 1:30 Separate. Open the hallway jar to show the whipped stage. Tell the volunteers to listen for a slosh: that is the buttermilk splitting off.
- 2:45 Rinse. Strain off the buttermilk, knead the butter in cold water until the water runs clear, and add salt.
- 3:50 Close. Butter in one hand, buttermilk in the other. Recap the three stages and say what to try at home first.
- 4:40 Spare. Twenty seconds for the slowest jar.
If your instructor gives you an outline format, use theirs. This is the shape, not a form to hand in. For a blank version with the same hook, points and time budget, start from the speech outline template.
In Strokes, the outline, the materials list and your note cards can live as documents in one project folder on your computer. Add the outline to a chat with the AI Assistant and ask which step a first-timer would get stuck on, or which stage looks short on time. Export it to PDF or Word if it has to be handed in. And if the assignment turns out to be a different kind of speech, try the informative speech topics or persuasive speech topics.
Frequently asked questions
What is a demonstration speech?
An informative speech that teaches the audience how to do or make something by showing each step as you explain it, usually with props or visual aids. It is also called a how-to speech or a process speech.
What is the difference between a demonstration speech and an informative speech?
A demonstration speech is one kind of informative speech. An informative speech can explain an idea, an event or a person with words and slides. A demonstration speech shows a process happening, so the audience leaves able to do it or at least follow how it works.
How long should a demonstration speech be?
As long as your assignment says. At a typical speaking pace of 130 to 150 words a minute, five minutes holds about 650 to 750 words of plain speech, but handling props takes time, so a demonstration script needs fewer words than that. Time a rehearsal with the props in your hands.
What are some easy demonstration speech topics?
Short processes with one or two props and a visible result: folding a T-shirt in two seconds (15), tying a four-in-hand knot (16), making an eight-page zine (28), fingerspelling in American Sign Language (44) or calculating a tip in your head (71). Easy mostly means you have done it many times before.
What if my topic needs something I can't bring to class?
Bring the part that matters: the bike wheel instead of the bike, a tire gauge and a photo instead of the car. A model, a volunteer or a short video clip can stand in for the rest. Ask your instructor whether a video counts toward your time.
