Let me introduce you to a young lady named Kit Kittredge. She dreams of being a reporter and having her articles published in the paper. With the encouragement of her father, she chases after her dreams. When the Depression hits her family hard, they are forced to make sacrifices, but it doesn’t mean that they need to give up hope.
Kit Kittredge is an American Girl movie based upon the books. The nice thing about American Girl movies is that you also get a bit of a history lesson within the movies. The Kit Kittredge movie takes place during The Great Depression time period.
When I told Munchkin that we would be using the Kit Kittredge movie as part of her schooling, she was rather excited. Zeezok Publishing, the publishers of the Presidential Penmanship program we enjoyed last year, has released a new line of movie guides call Z-guides to the movies.
We received a download of the not-yet-finalized Kit Kittredge Z-guide to the movies. As soon as I received it, I printed it out, created a cover (no cover was available yet), and spiral bound it. I knew that we would use this when we were on our semi-vacation. (As in, D was at a conference, and Munchkin and I went along for the ride.) Since it was a Kit movie, Munchkin was looking forward to doing her school work.
The Z-guide to the movies contains a suggested 5 day schedule, topic overview, movie synopsis, movie discussion questions plus 9 other activities, family discussion questions, and an answer key. The 10 activities allow the students to dig deeper into the topics covered in the movie.
We started off by reading the topic overview and then popped the movie into the dvd player. As the movie played, we used the discussion guide to talk about what was happening. Since we’ve seen this movie multiple times, we did go ahead and play the movie while we talked. Once the movie was over, we discussed a few more things about the time period and what it would have been like to live during the Great Depression.
The other activities included in the activity guide will require the use of the internet and/or outside resources such as books. I recommend using both. Some of the activities include looking deeper into the Great Depression (some of the questions are serious while others are more on the fun side), learning to write/decipher hobo, vocabulary, writing an article for a newspaper, researching and creating fashions, identifying the movie characters, learning about irony and foreshadowing in literature and other media, learning about prejudice, and discussing effects in film making.
Munchkin and I thoroughly enjoyed working through the Kit Kittredge Z-guide to the movies. It was a fun way to study about the depression era. If you’re looking for a way to incorporate media (such as movies) into your studies, these z-guides would be a great option. The z-guides are available for a wide range of subjects and age groups.
The cd version of the Kit Kittredge Z-guide to the movies is available for $12.99. The cd does not include the movie, so you’ll need to rent or purchase the movie for this study. While it is geared toward junior high age students, I believe it could be used for most age groups.
I received a preview copy of the Z-guide to the movies as a member of the TOS Crew to help facilitate the writing of a frank and honest review. A positive review is not guaranteed. All opinions are my own.
