My son and I recently studied Louisa May Alcott in history. His third grade book is made up of biography snippets from great Americans. They are brief and sometimes vague, but it is fun to fill in the blanks with additional studies.
For our adventure with Ms. Alcott, we watched the movie "Little Women". I remembered going to see it in the theater when it came out more than a decade ago. My mom and I went together and we cried together and enjoyed ourselves. I wasn’t sure how a nine-year-old boy would react to watching a movie about four sisters. He did great. Only once did I have to tell him to focus. Granted he didn’t sit still the entire time. He is, of course, his father’s child and sitting still for too long just isn’t in his nature. He actually learns better when he isn’t confined with lack of movement. He actually used the word multi-tasking the other day to describe what he can do. I about fell over. I never thought of him as a multi-tasker, but just a kid.
I remember the first time I watched this movie in the theater that I really only knew of Susan Sarandon and Winona Ryder as actresses. This time as I watched I was distracted by the actors. Christian Bale who plays Laurie also played Batman. Young Amy, Kirsten Dunst, is now Spiderman’s girlfriend, and Beth, Clare Danes was in "Terminator 3". That might tell you the genre of movie I am used to watching.
I enjoyed the movie for the story however and jotted questions to quiz my son on after the movie was over. I love being able to generate my own questions like that. Instead of factual information I was more interested in how this movie might expand his thinking. We were able to talk a little bit about what he wants to do when he grows up, what is more important how people perceive you or who you truly are, and if the movie still reflected anything of modern life. His answers were very mature and intuitive.
We were also able to compare them to the C.S. Lewis classic "The Chronicles of Narnia". We were able to find many similarities between the four March sisters and the Pevensie children. The most obvious being that their fathers were both off at war at the beginning of the movie. We’ve been talking a lot in reading how books and movies may differ. I had originally thought we might read the book "Little Women" but now we are in the middle of the Narnia series and I am just as intrigued by them as Dave. So I didn’t want to break it up.
Amazingly at dinner my son asked me if I knew the differences between the movie and the book of "Little Women". I replied that I didn’t. It’s been so long since I’ve read the book, or did I ever finish it, that I don’t remember. "Well maybe we need to find that out." He said. It is a good thing I was seated. So the reading of "Little Women" goes back on the agenda. Third grade has been a surprising wonderful year and sometimes the teacher becomes the student.
