I would base my lesson on the ESERO Special Life unit which looks at life on Earth and life in space. The learning outcomes are to identify what is special about the Earth, learn that there are no alien beings as far as we know and to use their imagination to draw an alien.
I would use the Oliver Jeffers’ story The Way Back Home as my lesson stimulus. I would show the children the cover and ask them to predict what the story is about and explain why. Through questioning I would aim to lead the children to concluding that we live on Earth and that the boy is travelling to space. I would then ask the children to do a walking debate based on life in space asking questions such as ‘would you like to live in space?’ and asking them to explain their reasoning.
I would read the story, pausing when the boy meets the alien to discuss aliens. Do we know if there are any real aliens? What would you tell the alien about why we live on earth etc. I would ask the children to write on a post it why human live on earth and stick it on the earth template. We would then discuss.
When we had finished the story I would then ask the children to imagine and draw their own alien friend.
Using the drawings I would select children to pretend to be their alien and ask the class to interview the alien.