By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 12-page classroom-ready resource.
Two differentiated question sets covering the full movie in chronological order. Answer keys are included for both sets.
- 30 question set requiring full sentence answers.
- 30 multiple-choice question set with three options each.
- A 9-scene storyboard illustrating and summarizing key events in chronological order.
- A structured plot synopsis, written using the completed storyboard as a scaffold, practicing sequencing, narrative organisation, and clear written expression.
This part covers two activities.
- Writing a sentence for each letter of the word 'Ferdinand' (an acrostic structure), then writing about moments in the movie where they felt sad, happy, and excited.
- A word search featuring 15 terms, five of which require students to answer clues before searching.
“Great for following a unit about bullfighting! Students love the movie and the questions help them follow along.”
— Naomi P.
“Love how this resource not only has the key to the questions but that their are different versions. ”
— Jocelyn F.
Why Watch This Movie With Your Students
Here's what your students naturally take away from the movie, whether through themes, values, ideas, or perspectives.
🌸 A protagonist built around a single, clear principle. Ferdinand does not want to fight. That commitment is tested constantly, and the story is honest about the cost of holding to it. Students who struggle with peer pressure or feeling out of place in a group often find something they recognise in him.
📖 A well-known book brought to life with real faithfulness. Munro Leaf's 1936 picture book is one of the most widely read children's stories of the twentieth century. The movie keeps the heart of the original intact while expanding the world around it, making it a useful text for classes exploring how stories change between page and screen.
🇪🇸 A specific setting that adds texture to the story. Ferdinand is set in Spain, and the bullfighting tradition is not just backdrop. It is the conflict at the centre of the movie. The sport and the controversy surrounding it are handled in a way that is accessible to younger students while raising real questions about tradition, glory, and what we ask animals to do for entertainment.
😄 A strong supporting cast that keeps the energy up. The trio of hedgehogs, the calming goat Lupe, and the snobbish dancing horses give the movie a lot of its comedy. The humour is broad enough to land with younger students without undercutting the more serious moments.
💪 A story about courage that does not rely on fighting. Ferdinand's most courageous moments are the ones where he refuses to be something he is not. The movie makes a clear-eyed argument that strength and gentleness are not opposites, which gives it something worth discussing well beyond the classroom.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- Mild peril and some potentially upsetting scenes: Ferdinand is slashed with a spear during a bullfighting sequence; a tense rescue scene takes place in a meat-processing facility with dangerous machinery and near-misses. A young Ferdinand searches for his father after a bullfight and realises he is not coming back; this scene may upset younger or more sensitive students.
- Mild action: Ferdinand charges a bullfighter and sends him flying, and knocks people over in crowd scenes. No blood; characters are unharmed.
- Language: no cursing, but Ferdinand and other non-aggressive bulls are called names including 'flower boy', 'soft', 'puny', 'loser', and 'dork'. Mild crude humour, including a joke about bulls 'fertilising the lawn'.
- Very mild innuendo: a supporting character makes one or two admiring remarks about a male character's physique.
- No sexual content, no substance use.
📋 A free editable parent permission slip is available for this movie. It explains the educational benefits of watching movies in class and includes a space for parental consent. → Download Free Permission Slip on TpT (Free resource)
Note for educators: Movie details and age ratings in this post are sourced from IMDb, Common Sense Media, and Wikipedia to help ensure accuracy.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
Click your subject below to see how this guide supports it:
📚 English Language Arts Teachers
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons
🏠 Homeschool Parents
💙 SEL Teachers
🌟 Supporting All Learners A movie gives students a story to follow, and the guide gives them questions to work through as they watch. For students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities, that combination provides a clear focus for the lesson and a concrete way to show understanding. The format can be useful in special education and learning support classrooms, where teachers need activities that give students a defined task during viewing. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
Watching a movie is not a break from learning. It reaches students through sight, sound, and story at once, engaging the brain in ways text alone does not, and the structured work around it is what turns the viewing into a genuine lesson. You can read the research behind this on the Why Movies Work page.
- A Teacher Notes and General Directions page opens the guide with a brief overview of everything inside: what the movie is about, then each part of the guide in order with a short description of what it entails. You know what to expect from the whole resource before you hand out a single page, so you can pick up the guide cold and teach it the same day.
- Answer keys are included for the comprehension question sets, so grading is quick and you are not rewatching the movie to check answers. Some guides also include example answers for the creative and written activities.
- Print and go: classroom ready, with no additional preparation needed. Print one the morning you need it and the lesson is ready.
- Substitute and first-timer friendly. A guide can be handed to a substitute or picked up by a teacher covering the topic for the first time. Nobody running the session needs to have seen the movie.
- Differentiated comprehension sets. Most guides include two or three question sets at different difficulty levels, and most include a multiple-choice option that works well for ESL and ELL students. One class set covers your strongest readers, your strugglers, and your language learners without separate prep.
- Activities that go beyond recall. Each guide includes structured activities that ask students to engage with the movie, not just watch it, ranging from creative and written tasks to discussion and critical thinking questions depending on the guide. That variety matters in a mixed classroom: a student who freezes on a written question set may show real understanding through a drawing or a creative task, and a confident writer gets room to go beyond recall. For the teacher, it turns a movie session into work you can grade: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
