Z-Guides to the Movies - review

If you have read my blog for any length of time you know that I am not a huge media-buff. I limit it as much as possible for my kiddos. However, I do think there is a place for it. If we can use media as an educational and fun opportunity, in a limited way, I see huge potential.



Zeezok's "Z-Guides to the movies" is a great way to integrate movies into your history curriculum. According to their website:

We have dozens of guides— each of them falling within a specific time in history. All of the guides contain ten educational activities that build upon the movie. The guides are movie specific. We tell you exactly which movie we used, and almost all are available thru Netflix. Most you can probably get through your local library. So you don’t even need to buy the movie to use our guides

Each guide comes with 10 activites for the student. The first activity is always review questions and they are supposed to be answered as the student watches the movie. They are designed to keep the student engaged in learning, instead of just staring at the screen. I really like the idea of answering questions as the student goes along.

The rest of the activities center around the historical time period of the movie. There are research activities, worldview activities, critical thinking, family discussion questions and more. It is designed to do 2 activites a day and be completed in a week.

 I really love the idea of having guides to actual movies, not just educational movies. It gives the student the opportunity to see more about the time period being studied (if the movie is well-done and not too "hollywoody"--but that's a different post altogether).

 Zeezok has movie guides for both elementary/middle school kids, and high school kids. They are available on their website as a downloadable e-book for $12.99 per guide. You can see a sample of the guide here

OUR EXPERIENCE: The Z-Guide we reviewed was for the movie "FlyBoys". When we were asked to review a guide I simply looked at the ones available for Paul's age group and the time period we were about to study. "FlyBoys" fit right into both of those categories. I should have been a little more diligent in the movie I picked. As "FlyBoys" is rated PG-13, it is not a movie I will allow Paul to watch. This is NOT Zeezok's fault, it is my responsibility to filter what is coming in to our home. So, we were not able to complete the first activity, since it is questions about the movie, but we were able to discuss the time period, as well as the plot of the movie and completed many of the other activities. I really enjoyed the Reading Comprehension activity because it gave him a better understanding of the time period. All of the activities are very thoroughly written and they are very appropriate for this age group. We will definitely be ordering and downloading some of their other "z-guides" to complement our history curriculum. 

 Please go take a look at what other TOS Crew members have to say about the "Z-Guides" they received here 

 Disclosure: I recieved a copy of this product for free in exchange for an honest review. All opinions are my own, and there was no other compensation given for this review. - Posted using BlogPress from my iPad