Review: Zeezok Guide to the Movies

Finally, someone has come up with our family's kind of curriculum!  Watch a movie, learn from it.  How much better could it get?

Zeezok Publishing has created these wonderful little things called "Z-Guides to the Movies" to go along with select movies that are full of wonderful learning opportunities.  When presented with the opportunity to review the guide that corresponds to the movie Mr. Smith Goes to Washington I jumped at the chance!  Mr. Smith... is one of our 14-year-old daughter's favorite movies so I knew this review would be a perfect fit for us.

We received the e-book, however you may also purchase the guide on CD if you wish.  This CD contains a printable pdf file of the complete study guide.  Regardless of which option you choose, each cost $12.99.  If you don't already own the movie for which you are studying you may also purchase them on DVD from Zeezok, rent them, purchase them from the store, borrow them from the library, or, my very favorite, get them through Netflix.

The study guide starts out with a Topic Overview.  In this particular guide a brief explanation of Congress, Senators, and filibusters as they pertain to the movie.  Next comes a movie synopsis giving a brief description of the movie for those who may not have already seen the movie.

Following this are ten different activities to help study different aspects of the movie more in depth.  For this particular title we started with 25 movie review questions.  Even though we had already seen the movie, a few times in fact, we still chose to watch it again so it would be fresh in our minds.  But before watching the movie for this study my daughter and I read over the review questions first so we would be aware of what to listen and watch for.  I had her answer the questions as she recognized them while watching the movie.  Gotta love that Pause button!

Then we moved on to learning all about the filibuster.  Having never had the opportunity to take a US Governement class in school and having been busy raising kiddo's the past 15 years, this study was as much for me as it was my daughter!  American history is FASCINATING to me and I thoroughly enjoyed working on this and look forward to more of these studies.

Some of the other activities we worked on were learning how a bill becomes a law, comparing our views on our US Senators (are they representatives, trustees, or both?), becoming a reporter as well as an interveiwer covering this story, trying to get inside the mind of the director of the movie, as well as several other fun and thought-provoking activities.

Both my daughter and I learned so much through the guidance of this study and we look forward to using more z-guides to dig further into other movies.  What an awesome and fun way to study history!  Even my younger kids joined in watching the movie (again) as well as some of the activities.  That's what I love so much about homeschooling.  Even though this study is labeled as being for high school students, younger children can learn so much just by joining in on the fun!

There are 28 different Z-Guides to the Movies, all of which look to be just as fun and interesting as Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and each costing just $12.99.  Each title focuses on a specific time in history and in my honest opinion is just simply a fun way to help understand what life was like during a specific historical period of time.  History shouldn't be dry and boring, but exciting and interesting and if possible, fun!  With these Z-guides from Zeezok Publishing I really do think we're going to enjoy our history time a whole lot more.

*As a member of the TOS Homeschool Crew I received this product free of charge in exchange for my review and honest opinion of it. As a believer and follower of my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, I promise you that all my reviews contain only my own honest opinions...'cause He told me to not lie!