Alive and not alive?

Resources

Two alien pictures/puppets

Some objects and/or pictures. Choose ones that are certainly alive and certainly not alive then some in between that children will have to think about. Put them in a bag ready to draw out later. Place two hoops or two boards on the floor with ‘alive’ and ‘not alive’ written on them.
Suggested pictures:

A human
A Tree
Twig with leaves
Twig without leaves
Tree without leaves
Seed or Egg
Fire
Hair
Thoughts
The Sun
A Robot
A Snowman

Starter

Tell the following story:

Pinka and Arwin (or make up your own names) were two of the cleverest aliens you could ever meet. They could read whole books in seconds, just by flicking the pages. They never needed help to work out what the time was or how much money they needed, their brains worked it out easily.

Pinka and Arwin came to earth to find some things that were ‘alive’. Pinka started with a shoe.

‘Here look at this! I think it might be alive’, Pinka paused and looked a little closer. ‘In fact, if I look carefully, I can see definitely alive’, continued Pinka, looking closely.

‘Hold on!’ said Arwin, ‘that’s not alive. It’s not a living thing; it’s just a thing. Put it in the ‘not alive.’

‘No, no, no!’ cried Pinka. ‘It’s actually alive!’

‘Nope. Not alive’, replied Arwin

‘Alive!’

‘Not alive!’

The discussion continued long into the night…."

Main activity

See if the children can come up with the aliens’ reasons. Ask the children to pretend they are one of them or you can get them to take the picture/puppet of the alien and pretend to ask the aliens why they think the shoe is alive. Continue with other objects as appropriate.