Digital Play

By kylemawer 　http://www.digitalplay.info/blog/2010/06/04/hero-machine-relay-play-for-primaries/

Learners reproduce the physical appearance of a superhero from reading and relaying a written description.

Level: Primary

Location: Computer room

Language focus:  Has got/ is wearing/ colours/ clothes vocabulary/ physical descriptions/ parts of the body

Game: Hero machine

Preparation

1. Either play with heromachine  yourself and both write a physical description of the hero you produce and take a screenshot and print the hero OR download and print a copy of the Superhero Relay Play material (relay dictation text and superhero picture).
2. Read the set up at the bottom of this post.

Preplay

1. Play hangman with ‘s u p e r h e r o’
2. Brainstorm some superheroes
3. Elicit some physical descriptions of some of the superheroes on the board (focus on some of the language focus items for this game)
4. Write the name of the superhero you have a picture of up on the board and elicit possible physical descriptions.
5. Learners do a relay dictation of the written description.

Play

1. In the computer room learners use the written description fro the relay dictation to reproduce the superhero.
2. When they have finished learners stand up and compare each superhero on each screen with the printed picture of the superhero.
3. Learners make their own superhero and write a description using the relay dictation text as a model.

Post play

1. Learners print their superheroes out (screen capture at school or at home) and put them on the classroom wall.
2. Taking it in turns they read out the description and others identify the picture.
3. Alternatively learners look at the pictures and predict the description.

How to play with Heromachine

You need to familiarise your learners with hero machine a little so you may either want to present the game in a connected classroom or direct learners through it in the computer room.

1 Choose a body template.  You could do this in the connected classroom by asking the class what you should choose.  e.g. a man or a woman?  Short or tall?

2 As soon as you choose one of the four templates you are given a few loading options.  For the full range of clothes, objects, weapons, companions and body parts etc choose the complete option (the one I usually choose).

3 When your option has loaded click on the little arrow to the right of the lower small window (the one on the bottom) on the right just below where it says ‘component and genre’.  This allows you to open up the different body parts, clothing etc.  Just click on one to add it to your superhero.  Use the slide bar underneath to see more.

4 Use the palette below to add details to the physical appearance of your superhero, access more details by using the slidebar and colour your superhero.  Usually each single detail you have has two aspects to it so you can have two or one colour for each detail you add to your superhero.  For example, you could have green trousers with red stripes.

5 Finally if you learners make any mistakes they just have to click on the item they want to change and then make the change.  This could be changing a hairstyle, clothing or the colour.  Have fun!