Z-Guide to the Movies

 

 

• Available from  Zeezok Publishing
• Kit Kittredge An American Girl
• Elementary/Jr. High
• $12.99

 

     Zeezok Publishing has developed learning guides that make it easy to incorporate movies into your history program. They have dozens of guides, each of which cover a specific period in history.  The guides include 10 different learning activities. These begin with an overview of the movie, then questions to answer as the movie is being watched.  The next several activities focus on the historical time frame of the movie. Research and writing skills are emphasized.  A hands on activity, a worldview activity and a Filmmakers Art activity round out the movie guide.

     Zeezok recommends taking a week to use one of the guides. The synopsis and watching of the movie begin on the first day. Then approximately two activities are done each subsequent day for a full week. The final activity is called the Filmmakers Art. This teaches the student how  filmakers uses different tools to influence the viewer. The goal teaching in the Filmakers Art is to teach kids how to discern not only the movies agenda, but how it is influencing them.

ClarkClan Thoughts

     We had the privilege of reviewing a Zeezok Z-Guide to the Movies last spring. We reviewed a high school level guide on the movie Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner.  We thoroughly enjoyed using the guide. (If interested, you can find my review here.)

      When we were given the opportunity to review another guide, I was thrilled. This time I picked an elementary level guide based on the movie Kit Kittredge. Once again Zeezok did not disappoint. This guide was just as thorough and just as fun to use.

     We owned the movie Kit Kittredge, so we did not have to find it from another source. Zeezok says on their website that almost all movies are available through NetFlix. The guide comes as a PDF download. I printed the guide out to have a paper copy on hand, and was able to make a copy of each activity, as needed, for my kids. Since we have watched this movie before my kids knew what it was about. When we watched the movie using the movie guide, I paused it and we talked about each overview question as it came up.  Ben and Rebekah kept exclaiming over the details that they had never noticed before.

     Then we took the next few days to complete the rest of the activities.  One day we researched the Great Depression by answering 6 questions using the internet for the answers. A favorite activity was decoding “Hobo sign”. A vocabulary page was included. Activity 5 had us writing a newspaper article using the five “W” questions. I also enjoyed going over the Family Discussion questions with my kids. Another neat feature of the Z-Guide to the Movies is that all answers are included in the PDF download.

About Zeezok Publishing

     Zeezok Publishing originally began as a company known as The Book Peddler in 1993. After 10 years of traveling around the country attending homeschool conventions, they began publishing and selling their own materials.  Since 2003, the company has been slowly growing and adding new things. Their newest product is a high school level government program called “A Noble Experiment”. Another product that I have purchased from Zeezok is their “Presidential Penmanship” program. This supplemental handwriting program exposes students to the quotes of America’s founding fathers and presidents.  Make sure to visit their website to see all the educational products they have to offer.

     Want to learn more about the Z-Guides to the Movies. Visit the Crew Blog and read what my Crew mates had to say about the guides. Many different guides were reviewed so you can see a variety of movies available.

As an Independent contractor for The Old Schoolhouse and member of TOS Homeschool Crew I received the Kit Kittredge Z-Guide to the Movies for free from Zeezok Publishing , in exchange for my honest review of their product.