Tuesday, February 4, 2014

Using Television & movies to teach

Using Television & movies 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!
Examples on main ones I love and use:
The main ones to help you is
  1. A&E television Network: Each weekday morning the A&E Network offers commercial-free, copyright cleared educational programming. These programs cover a variety of topics suitable for grades 4 and higher. Along with this is a email schedule of upcoming events and a snail mail year calendar of programs. They also have lesson plans for some of the shows. http://www.aetv.com/class
  2. Art zone Featuring Art, Music, Film they do have realvideo outputs you can watch on your computer http://www.ovationtv.com/
  3. Biography Channel: Sponsored by A&E network has the same great discussion, calendar, and classroom study guides. Great information on famous people throughout time. http://www.biography.com
  4. Cable in the Classroom: Cable in the Classroom represents the cable telecommunications industry's efforts to use cable content and new technologies to improve teaching and learning for children in schools, at home, and in their communities. http://www.ciconline.org/
  5. Court Tv: is an education and public service initiative targeting middle schools and high schools, which also offers resources for colleges and law schools. Their goal is to help young people make responsible and positive decisions. http://www.courttv.com/choices/intro.html
  6. Discovery School: Designed by teachers for teachers, this award-winning series keeps the learning styles of elementary-age children in mind. They have online lesson plans that go a long with the shows so you don’t have to prepare anything. Also have Animal planet, Discovery kids, TLC.
    http://school.discovery.com/ontv
  7. Disney Lesson plans-A great place with all your favorite Disney charactershttp://dep.disney.go.com/educational/index
  8. Fit Tv-From exercise listings, to how to stay healthy with food recipes this is a great way for the whole family to stay healthy. http://fittv.discovery.com/
  9. Foodnetwork: One of my favorites shows is “Good Eats” he takes food to a science great entertainment to watch with the kids. http://www.foodnetwork.com/food/show_ea
  10. History Channel: Packed with show time calendars, discussion groups, and study guides for the famous history channel http://www.historychannel.com/classroom/
  11.  KLRN: A great tv site with shows such as Liberty kids for younger kids, History detectives for older kids, Statue of Liberty also for older kids http://www.klrn.org/Learning/Index.aspx
  12. NASA Channel: Provides real time coverage of agency activities, missions and educational programming to teachers and students. http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html
  13. Nickelodeon: Mostly fun kid cartoons and game site. I do like The Wild Thornberry shows of a young homeschooler that travels the world with her family.  Great for watching it then look up the country they were at and the animals they saw for geography and study of animals. There is also Ozzie and Drix for the study of the human body.  http://www.nickelodeon.com
  14. Nick Junior: Programming for preschoolers. A great place to have the little ones watch as you teach the older kids. Blue clue, Dora the explorer, Max and ruby. http://www.nickjr.com/
  15. PBS This station has some great learning videos. Weekend explorer is one of our favorites great for geography http://www.pbs.org/weekendexplorer  Check out their listing for movies on science, history etc..http://www.pbs.org. I have also seen Cyber Chase kids on this channel this is a great show to watch for kids learning math http://pbskids.org/cyberchase/
  16. Scie Fie In the Class room http://www.scifi.com/cableintheclassroom/ If your kids love watching the Scie Fie channel why not use some of them to help you teach.
  17. STAR: Although they show it on the Television there is a course fee for the books and manuals. http://www.usdlc.org/
  18. Travel Channel part of Discovery channel but I thought I would list it separately. Great place to study geography check the tv listing to find out what’s showing. Not all is suitable for kids so check out that guide before switching to that channel http://travel.discovery.com/  
  19. University House: The Universityhouse Channel provides a new way to bring education home. Showing on the DISH Network The Universityhouse Channel offers you a variety of educational programming, from K-12 instruction to accredited university courses. Enjoy these stimulating programs and courses in the convenience of your own home. http://www.universityhouse.nau.edu/
  20. UCTV: launched by the ML:NAMESPACE PREFIX = ST1 />University of California to provide the public with informational, educational and enrichment programming that draws upon the vast intellectual, scientific and creative talents of the University of California . http://www.uctv.tv/
  21. Weather Channel: The Weather Classroom is appropriate for grades 5-10 each program airs commercial-free and copyright clear for educational use http://www.weather.com/wxclass/education/
New!!

Video & Online Video feeds/Webcasts:

Explore tv:  Tools for teaching many different webcasts http://www.exploratorium.edu/webcasts/index.php

Reading Rockets: Webcast videos on teaching your kids to read. This is a great learning tool for teachers. http://www.readingrockets.org/webcasts

Research Channel: They have a library of over 3000 of webcasts
http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/

Video Placement Worldwide:
This is great for groups of 25 or more especially for a coop groups or Homeschool group.
http://www.vpw.com/educational/default.asp


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 only when they do the math. 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



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
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"



**Themes**
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
The Mayflower Voyagers
The Patriot


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)