Beans In Jars

Page Summary

This activity includes using beans and a jar to indicate their thoughts on a topic.

Good For...

• Taking a vote
• Evaluating a particular activity
• Introducing a discussion

You Will Require

• A number of jars or containers
• Labels
• A pile of beans, beads or stones

Preparation

Decide on the subject you want to evaluate and label the jars accordingly. There are suggestions below, but we will use a Holiday Club as an example.

What To Do

• Explain to the young people that you want to know their thoughts on the Holiday Club.
• Briefly remind them of what happened by referring to the labels on the jars e.g. singing, small groups, messy activity, Bible story, prayer time
• Give each person a number of beans (one or two more than the number of jars). Ask them to distribute their beans to show what they enjoyed. They can choose to put all their beans in one jar or distibute them across the jars.
• Use the results to dig a bit more deeply - why was that the most popular? how could the less popular aspects be made better? what might they do differently?
• Reflect - what have you learned? How might that feed in to what you (or the church) do? Who can help things to change?

Suggested subjects

• Holiday Club
• After School activity
• Sunday worship
• Parish weekend

Do It Differently

• Reverse the evaluation - ask the young people to vote on what they think their leaders enjoyed/thought most important