Welcome Friends and family to
my
Tv
& Video Homeschooling site
"Oh the comforts of home"
Friday night movie day is one of our favorite days of
the week. My daughter is very visual. Most the time we just discuss the movies other times
we will do a unit study of them.
Using movies and videos can be really
cheap too for the frugal Homeschooler. A lot of my videos I buy at flea
markets or at Half.com. The library is another source to get them from,
I love the Eyewittness News videos and havent collected them all
yet because there are so many of them out there.
Using Television to teach:
If your like the many americans
who subscribe monthly to cabel or satellite each
month for entertainment, why not use it to help teach your kids? Many
of y'all don't even realize the many shows out there that can help teach
and your already paying for it! If not you should consider either Dish or
Direct TV Click on the logos to find out more
Examples on main ones I love and
use:
A&E - Has wonderful educational shows on it. The
website also has teachers guides and a online calendar as well as the
"Idea book" which can be sent to you via snail mail for free. In it has
valuable resources as well as a calendar.
Discovery Channel-One of the best television shows to
help teach your children is loaded with lesson plans for them as well as
a online calendar and a online newsletter sent to you via email on upcoming
shows in catagorys that will interest you.
PBS-I love PBS they have some great shows on for every
catagory of teaching. At the website they have a teachers source site with
not only lesson plans but related links as well. They also have a online
newsletter you can subscribe too on the subjects you are interested in to
learn about when they come on.
There are so much more check out my
pdf file on other programs to see if they are available in your
area.
"Click Here"
Special notes for myself to check weekly:
Discovery school which
includes listings for Discovery, TLC, Animal Planet, Health Classroom
& Travel Channel
Some Suggestions on how to
use movies for unit studies:
1. Reading: Find out how Actual the movie is
from from the real history of the event.
I have found out even if the movie is not accurate you can
go over the real history facts with your children. Do a research on what
really happened. For example "Black Beauty" the movie only shows some of
Beautys Masters read the real book to find out who were the others. My
daughter was excited to find out who else had owned Beauty and started
reading without being asked. Now that's real inspiration.
2. Geography: Grab your globes its time for
geography. Check out the location of the movie your watching
or going to watch. Get a heads up before you watch it so your kids can get
an idea where its at even if it is pretend "Hollywood studios"
3. History: History lesson time,
find out the era in which the movie was suppose to be and find out other
events that happened around that same time. If in another country find out
who the current leader was in that year. Is about a real person? Learn
more about this person and why they have become famous. Have the kids skim
over a biography book to find an interesting knew fact about the person
that they didnt show in the movie.
4. Life learning lesson/bible:
What did you learn from this movie, friendship, enemys, greed, happiness,
trustworthy, betrayal, hope, sadness, lost, honor ect. What is good and
bad about each one? Discuss bible lessons associated with each one.
5. Writing lesson: Have them do
a small paragraph or book report on what they did and did'nt like
about the movie and how they would change the
ending.
6. Math: While math is one of
the hardest things to think of when applying to any unit study it can be
done with a little imagination.
Depending on the age of your child and what they are
studying that semester incorporate it into your unit study math.
Examples
Scavenger hunt: Keep note of things that you
see a lot in the
movie and when your child sees it have them write it down.
They dont have to be accurate. Then at the end of the movie they can add
them together or subtract or multiply.
Miles: Did the main character travel places? Find
out just how far he traveled with a little geography help then add it all
up. For the older create and ask them Problem solving problems like
how long did you think it took them to get to destination.
Are you learning about graphs? Do a graph on
something on the movie.
Can you add fractions anywhere in the movie
Problem solving problems Use the characters and
events in the movie to do this.
Arts & Craft/The Arts: Do a
craft that is will remind you of the movie, study the Culture of the time
event, costume, and the foods maybe even create your own dish to eat at
the same time your watching the movie. Try something new!
Stop the movie! Dont be scared
to stop the movie to discuss a topic that you are learning about, it may
be entertaining and the kids may think its a free day, but it is after all
school time.
Prepare early: If you know the
movie your going to do prepare everything before hand if you can. I
had this problem because we would watch a movie and I couldnt prepare a
lesson plan till days, weeks later and a lot of the movie is already
forgotten and not fresh any longer.
Lesson
Plans:
Need help making a lesson plan for your Educational
Movies
Movies in the Classroom http://www.classbrain.com/artmovies/publish/
Webquest lesson plans http://eduscapes.com/seeds/webquest.html
Teach with movies has a small yearly
fee but everything is laid out for you. http://www.teachwithmovies.com/index.html
Awesome Library:
Movie introductions some with scripts
http://www.awesomelibrary.org/Classroom/Arts/Movies/Movies.html
This is most likely for the older
kids but this is for Asian films. Has lesson plans and movies guide
http://www.aems.uiuc.edu/HTML/Lessonplans/Guides.html
If you need help remembering the
orginal book this site is one of the oldest Ebooks out there that is free
"The Gutenburg
Project"
**My own Lesson Plans**
These are done in html format instead of pdf files I
wanted you to be able to click on the links. I have only three right now but
working on others soon:
Last updated July/9/2005
Black
Beauty
-Unit study on
the Movie Black Beauty from Warner Brothers.
Sea Bisquit -Unit study of the movie Sea
Bisquit-with Tobey Maguire, Jeff
Bridges, Chris Cooper DVD
Roots- Unit Study of the movie
Roots Warner Homes Tv Series put into DVD or VHS
Thanksgiving themes
try
For younger-
Charlie Brown
Thanksgiving-this is a classic
Rugrats: The
Santa Experience/ A Rugrats Thanksgiving
Rugrats:
Thanksgiving
Mouse on the Mayflower
This is America, Charlie
Brown
Disney Pocahontas
Older:
MayFlower: The pilgrams adventure http://movies2.nytimes.com/gst/movies/movie.html?v_id=127396
The Mayflower Voyagers
The Patriot
(Currently working on)
Black
Stallion-Little Women & Gone with the wind will be together to potray
the North and South
view-Moby Dick-National Treasurer--Titantic-Uncle Toms Cabin
Videos:
Most of these videos you can rent at maybe your local
blockbuster, Hollywood videos, or your own library for free! If they
dont have them there ask for a interlibrary loan from another
library. Some you will have to buy or rent monthly for instance
*One of my old time favorites is “Eyewitness videos” these can be controversial
because of the evolution content in some of them. I like them
because I can show both views to my daughter and son. I think its better to
discuss this when I am with them then later in life when they are alone.
They have a wide variety of themes like The Sea, Mammals, Guerillas, You can
buy them brand new but I would suggest what I did and buy them used
at (Click on the logos below to find them)
*Heroes of the Bible is another of my
favorites that I usually rent from my local library. Or buy them
brand new at http://www.christianbook.com/ is just one place you can get them.
<
/A>
*A listing of Learning videos to teach
kids the basic R’s
http://www.aplusvideorentals.com/ for homeschooling, make a list, pay
monthly and get the videos sent to you.
*Mentura family friendly videos
http://mentura.com/home.aspx same thing you
pay monthly, make a list of videos you want, when your done send them back They recently changed
ownership so I am not sure how reliable they are now.
If you would like a list of movie I
found the "Love to learn place for Homeschoolers" has a few suggestions and ideas on what you can
do eBay's Half.com.....buy and sell used books, movies, music and games
http://www.lovetolearnplace.com/Movies/index.html
To order free videos for your Coop or
Homeschool group go to Video Placement-Must be nonprofit and have at least 25
kids.
Review
Sites:
Need help on deciding what to view for your
kids
Yahoo movie review for
moms
http://movies.yahoo.com/moviemom/
Novel click done by kids
http://www.novelclick.com/movie_reviews.htm
Film Value for Parents
http://www.filmvalues.com/
Parents Television
http://www.parentstv.org/
Hope this has helped you if you know
of others email me and I will add them for future.
If you found this site helpful please leave
me a note on my guest book below: I love to hear from y'all plus it
encourages me to do more :)