A few years back I created a history course for my teen using a textbook as a spine and then adding in other related books and movies. One of the movies we watched has stayed with her for years. In fact, we were just talking about it the other night! Movies can be a great visual for kids to hang their thoughts on and thus Learning With the Movies can be a great addition to your homeschool resources.
Homeschool mama truth here! I always want to use movies as a teaching tool, but find I don’t do it as much as I would like.
Reason? I often struggle to find related movies that would be of use for our topics of study. It is hard to discern things like age appropriate content and historical accuracy.
Solution? Learning With the Movies – A Guide for Education and Fun by Beth Holland
Why Teach With Movies?
- Teaching with movies is like cross training in sports! Using multiple media types can increase the amount of learning and understanding your children can gain on a given topic.
- Movies off visual enhancement. After reading a book or learning about a topic from a book, movies off a great visual. It is one thing to read about something, another to experience it in motion with sites and sounds.
- Offers an opportunity to compare and contrast. Seeing a movie along with reading a book or learning about a subject offers students the chance to compare and contrast between them. We need our children to become adept at this high level thinking skill. Here is a FREE Printable Compare and Contrast: Movie vs. Book.
- Comprehension enhancement. With a book still fresh in their minds, students who have strong comprehension skills will enjoy seeing how the film compares to the mental picture they created in their heads. On the flip side, if you have someone who is struggling with comprehension, watching the movie will help them to be able to see what they misunderstood, thus increasing their comprehension of the story.
- Stories are powerful. If you are learning about a specific time period, finding a movie with a great story and representation of that time period, they are more likely to latch on to it and retain the information.
About Learning With The Movies
[amazon_link id=”0975392239″ target=”_blank” ]Learning With the Movies[/amazon_link] is a spiral bound book created by fellow homeschool mom, Beth Holland, to help families choose movies to coordinate with their specific topics of study.
In the book Beth offers her own insight into the relevance of movies, what may or may not be appropriate in them, as well as her own rating. Beyond this she has included the publication year, a list of actors, as well as it’s given rating if it has one. Many of her film choices are older ones due to what she feels is wonderful story telling and less objectionable content.
How Learning With the Movies is broken down:
Time Periods
- Bible Times
- Ancient Egypt
- Ancient Rome
- Mayans
- Vikings
- Middle Ages
- Renaissance
- Reformation
- 1600s
- 1700s (America, Europe)
- 1800s (West, East, Europe, World, Civil War)
- 1900s (General World, WWI, WWII)
- The Home Front
- Korean War
- Vietnam War
Categories
- Music/Arts
- Biographies
- Family Films
- Sports
- Science/Nature
- Horses
- Medicine
- Literature
- Holidays
- Miscellaneous
I absolutely LOVE having a book on hand that I can easily reference and find movies for my children to watch that have educational relevance! I happen to be a paper girl in the first place and having the book allows me to make my own notations on the movies as well as add any that we find of use for a given topic or time period.
Heidi Ciravola is mom to three kids who were all homeschooled. Two have graduated college and one is finishing homeschooling high school. She spends much of her time navigating the high school waters (from electives to college prep) and reviewing homeschool curriculum for all ages. You can find her writing about these things as well as her love of books and homeschool life in general over at Starts At Eight.
We have used movies as a supplement to our history, psychology, sociology, science and even math lessons. Nice to know there is a book that has it all in one place.