Avoid water turtles. Those who poop where they swim and are then touched by kids can be disease vectors.

If you're not doing displays where people are just looking at animals in tanks or cages you can use plastic tubs for transport. A dolly is a handy thing to have as well so you don't have to carry everything yourself.

A script is good. It will let you know what you're going to say and how long it takes to say it. Practice is helpful.

But no matter what, crowd control, be it 10 kids at a party or 200 at a library, is the key. If you don't know how to make the little buggers behave, be quiet, and pay attention, you're screwed. Age is also a factor. 3 year olds have the attention spans of gnats and don't ask many questions. 8 year olds wiggle a lot. 10 year olds can sit still and listen. They also ask a lot of questions. Older kids need more info, more detail and generally more time to ask questions.

Timing, when and how to show the animals and when and how to have kids ask questions is also important. If you have them interrupting you during your presentation, you'll lose them. Let a smart ass get away with being a smart ass and you'll have them all trying to out do each other. Cadence, how you tell them what you want them to know is also important. You need to have good flow, good rhythm.

You don't need many animals, 10 to 15 will do for most presentations. 45 to 60 minutes is about as long as most kids can sit still. 10 minutes for the 3 and under crowd is a long time. Knowing everything you can about what you're showing is vital unless just being another show and tell is all you're after. There are a LOT of those out there and the general public has NO idea that those of us who know our reptiles are far superior to those who just bring out a few snakes and lizards and also have clowns and magicians available.

There are some really lousy shows out there. Unfortunately, the lousy ones are often less expensive and budget is often all some administrators look at. If you're doing this for a living you need to make enough to cover all your expenses while still making it worthwhile to put the time and effort into the presentation.

If you're just doing one or two or a few shows for your kids school or scouts, you don't need much. If you want to do it for a living, it's a LOT of work.