As part of The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Review Crew, I received the digital version of the Z-Guide for Les Miserables to review.
From the Zeezok website:
Established in 2003, we believe “It is better to build children than to repair men.” To that end we strive to provide quality literature and educational books for use in training the next generation. We trust our products will assist you in developing your family’s love for God and country.
What is a Z-Guide? A Z-Guide let’s you incorporate movies into your curriculum. All of the movies that there are guides for fall into a specific time in history. You can search the Z-Guides by Historical Timeline, making it easy to find a Z-Guide to use with your history curriculum. Kids and teens love to watch movies, using a Z-Guide is a great way to reinforce what they are already learning. Most of the movies should be available at your library, or with an online service. You may not have to buy the movie. Zeezok does sell the movies to go with the guides. The guides are written for specific versions of the movies. If there is more than one version of the movie your buying the guide for, make sure you have the right version of the movie.
For this review, we received the digital version of the Les Miserables Z-Guide. The Z-Guides are available as downloads or CD’s shipped in the mail. The cost for these guides is $12.99 each for in home use. If you would like to use they guides in a group setting, like a homeschool co-op, they are $49.99. There are Z-Guides available for elementary grades through high school. Les Miserables is for high school students.
You can view a Z Guide sample, this sample is similar in format to the Les Miserables Z Guide I received. I was very impressed with the quality of the guide. It is very thorough. The kids read the synopsis of the movie before watching it. Then there are several pages of review questions for them to answer while watching the movie. I found this to work much better in the kids understanding the movie, compared to just taking their own notes while watching the movie.
The guides are written so they are completed in 5 days, with 2 activities being done every day. Of course, you can adjust this to fit your schedule. We took longer than 5 days to complete the study. On day one, you watch the movie and answer the review questions. The remaining 4 days have activities built around the historical time period of the movie, a hands on activity, a world view activity and a Filmmakers Art activity. The students will learn research skills, writing skills and critical thinking while completing the activities. And for the parents, answers are provided for all the questions!
I found the Les Miserables Z-Guide to be a great addition to our history curriculum.
See what other Homeschool Crew members are saying about Z-Guides.
*Disclosure of Material Connection: I received one or more of the products or services mentioned above for free in the hope that I would mention it on my blog. Regardless, I only recommend products or services I use personally and believe will be good for my readers. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”
[…] have talked before how we have used Z Guides to the Movies. That link goes to my review. These are comprehensive literature studies that are available for […]