Activity

Random Superheroes

Students practice "can" grammar by making amusing randomly generated superheroes.

Using "can" grammar to make superheroes is not my original idea, but here's a variation I made for one of my special needs classes. You can adapt it to a larger class if you want, but I'll describe how I did it in the special needs class.

First, you'll need dice! It's also a good idea to introduce the idea of a "superhero," possibly through pictures of reasonably well-known characters like Superman or Iron Man. With the recent wave of comic book movies you could possibly use whichever characters are in the most recent, well-known movies.

Roll the die first to determine if the superhero is a boy or girl. Then roll the die 4 times to determine the traits for the superhero in each category. Edit them to your liking, of course. I usually circle the number rolled for each category.

Now you have a superhero with 4 traits. At this point I pass out the cards from page 2. It's divided horizontally so you can either chop that in half, or have students generate more than one superhero. Students should write out the full sentences on the card "He can play the piano. He can't sleep." and then name the superhero and draw a picture. Try to verify that the students understand the traits of the superhero before they draw their picture. One variation is to have students draw another student's superhero instead of their own.

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Submitted by Jake W June 4, 2019 Estimated time: 15-25 minutes
Inspired by Superhero Powers
  1. UonumaRobert June 4, 2019

    Before getting them to completely make up heroes you can give them pictures of existing heroes and heroes generated using 'HeroMachine'.
    They can look at the imagine and think about what abilities those characters have. Maybe include some with names and some without names.

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