Book and Movie Unit Studies

Posted by Lisa Russell Oct 9, 2008

E.B. White's Charlotte's Web has been made into several versions of cartoon and live action films. You can read the book and then watch each version of the movie. Comparing old and new special effects and discussing the differences between hand drawn and computerized animation techniques would be an interesting study. You can research the techniques, create your own animations using a flip book, or the computer. GIMP is a free downloadable program that allows ou to turn your drawings into animations.

Whenever I see a movie after having read the book, I end up noticing all of the things they left out of the film, and sometimes things that weren't in the book at all. Discuss with your children why this is done (either for time or because some things are hard to translate into film)

Friends of ours recently did this with War of the Worlds, comparing the original book to the old movie, then to the newer movie. You could do this with nay book that has been turned into a movie, but when there are several versions of the movie, the lesson gets a little deeper. Keep that in mind when they're both telling you about their sibling rivalry issue. There are more than two sides to every story.