Earlier this year, I read the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick to the class. It's a 526 page book about an orphan that lives in a train station and fixes clocks. The main character encounters Georges Méliès, who was a real-life filmmaker in the late 1800's. The students seemed captivated by the beautiful illustrations in this book, which won Brian Selznick the Caldecott Medal.
When I was browsing Netflix today (hooray summer break downtime!), I came across the film A Trip to the Moon, directed by Georges Méliès. It was produced in 1902, and has a huge part in the book we read in class. I thought it would be fun for the students to see some of the drawings from the book come alive in this 12 minute film. You can choose to watch it in color or in black & white. You can also watch the movie adaptation of the novel on Netflix. The movie title is Hugo, and it was directed by Martin Scorsese. It's a favorite of my own children, but I just couldn't justify giving up 2 hours of class time this year to share it with the class. I've had good luck finding the DVD in the $5 bin at Wal-Mart too!
If you don't have a Netflix account, there is a link to the short film on author's website found here.
My kids and I are also really excited about the upcoming Disney Pixar movie Inside Out. Can you tell we love to watch movies? Since Gwen loves Disney, and loves drawing, I came across Disney's Animation Academy's drawing tutorials for some of our favorite characters. The videos have step-by-step directions on how to draw the characters. We can't wait to try these out! You can find the videos with the following link.
If I happen to come across anything else for summer fun, I'll be sure to share it!
