Alien Abduction

www.btbetterworld.com/developing_skills/free_resources/Alien_Abduction/home.ikml

KS2 (Years 3 - 6)

Citizenship & PSHE

This product is published by BT Better World Campaign (Tel: 0870 3330373)

Alien Abduction is a fun online activity which could be used by students to practise memory and listening skills. The users are shown six weird objects being beamed up to an alien spaceship. They have to select those objects from a grid of twenty objects. If they are successful, the number of objects increases to eight. Once the second part of the activity has been achieved, the user must listen to some information about the alien's planet while remembering another eight objects. After choosing the eight objects from the grid, the user has to answer ten questions about the information he just heard. Alien Abduction could be used in Literacy to encourage speaking and listening or Citizenship to encourage listening to others.

I introduced Alien Abduction as a follow up to our PSHCE focus which was to improve pupil's communication skills. The children began by feeling very confident that they could remember all six objects the aliens had abducted. They soon realised it wasn't as easy as it looked due to the fact that music was playing at the same time. This led to a very interesting discussion about how it is sometimes difficult to listen and concentrate when other sounds are around you. The second objective was more challenging as the children had to listen to a story about the planet while remembering the objects which were beamed up. This activity was harder for them but they soon developed ways to focus on the objects while hearing the main parts of the story. We discussed how it is hard to communicate with someone when you are doing something else or if there is a noisy atmosphere. The children thought of ways in which they could block out external noise and focus on their activity.The game aspect of Alien Abduction was thoroughly enjoyed by the children and they loved the sound effects which accompanied the objects. Another popular resource from BT Education.