Alien Adventure
Page Summary
This activity includes using an alien to discuss how the children / young people would explain church/church group to others.
Good For...
- Understanding how children experience/understand/feel about church/their church group
- Under 12s
You Will Require
- An Alien image for each particpant (use the image we have provided or use a search engine to find a suitable one). Print the image so that there is enough space for writing or drawing around it.
- Felt-tip pens/couloured pencils
- A4 or A3 plain paper for creating a poster
Preparation
- Print enough Alien images for your group + a few spare
- Consider which questions the Alien might want to ask (there are suggestions below). Write or print these inside speech bubbles, so that participants can take one at a time to answer.
What To Do
- Show the Alien image you have printed and get the group to decide on a name (we are going to use Arlo the Alien for simplicity)
- Arlo the Alien has never seen a church/church group before and is full of questions. S/he would like to hear what the children have to say.
- Read out some of the questions and invite the children (either individually or in pairs) to chose one to answer first. (They can write or draw their answers around the Alien image.)
- The children can answer as many questions as there is time for.
- Arlo the Alien would like to take something back to his/her planet to show the other aliens what happens at (name of church/group). Look together at all the responses from the activity. Which ones are the most important to put on a poster for Arlo? Create the poster together.
- Reflect - what have you learned? How might that feed in to what you (or the church) do? Who can help things change?
Related Questions
Why do you like coming to (name of church/group)? >
Activities Related To:
Why do you like coming to (name of church/group)?
Simple Questionnaire
This activity includes offering survey / questionnaire collating responses to questions about the church.
ViewWhat makes you feel welcome at (name of church/group)?
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What makes you feel welcome at (name of church/group)?
What makes you feel sad or unhappy about (name of church/group)? >
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What makes you feel sad or unhappy about (name of church/group)?
Thumbs Up?
This activity captures a snapshot of opinions before going into a discussion allowing less vocal members of a group to express an opinion without needing to use words.
ViewWhat do you do at (name of church/group)? >
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What do you do at (name of church/group)?
Why? Where? What? When? Who? How?
This activity includes dice and 6 cards, to facilitate a conversation with children / young people in order to share their views about particular subjects.
ViewA T-shirt or Wellie Say
This activity includes decorating a T-shirt or wellie boot using words, statements, pictures, or cut out text to share their views and ideas.
ViewJunk Model Say
This activity includes offering a question based on a particular subject and then inviting the children / young people to respond by making a junk sculpture model.
ViewWhat would make (name of church/group) better? >
Activities Related To:
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Simple Questionnaire
This activity includes offering survey / questionnaire collating responses to questions about the church.
ViewIdeas Carousel
This activity includes giving groups a certain amount of time to write as many comments down on their sheet that relate to the question at the top, moving the sheet on to the next group once the time has finished.
ViewWhat's the most important thing about (name of church/group)? >
Activities Related To:
What's the most important thing about (name of church/group)?
Diamond Ranking
This activity includes writing ideas on Post-it's and placing them in a diamond shape to rank the importance of each.
ViewPuppet Say
This activity allows children/young people who don't usually express an opinion have a voice through their puppet.
ViewLights, Camera, Action
This activity includes using video cameras to capture the children / young people's opinions about the church.
ViewDo It Differently
- Help Arlo find out about a particular aspect of worship (prayer, Bible, Holy Communion).
- With older young people, don't use an Alien, but someone who has never heard of Christianity.