By Mr Hull's Movie Guides
Watch the Trailer
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.
🎁 Contrasts selfless giving with corporate greed. The story sets up Santa's mission of giving against a rival toy manufacturer's plan to profit off of Christmas itself. Students can trace how each side's motivations shape their choices throughout the story.
🔧 Shows how good intentions can go wrong. Patch's drive to modernize toymaking through mass production leads directly to broken toys and his own dismissal from the North Pole. The story treats that mistake seriously rather than brushing past it, following Patch through the consequences of his choice.
🏙️ Contrasts two very different worlds. The movie moves from the fantasy of Santa's North Pole workshop to the gritty realism of 1980s New York City, including a homeless boy struggling to survive on the streets. That shift gives students a concrete way to compare settings, tone, and circumstance within a single story.
🤝 Explores found family and belonging. A homeless boy named Joe and a wealthy but neglected girl named Cornelia both find a place with Santa's family by the end of the story. Their inclusion widens what the movie has to say about who gets to belong somewhere and how that happens.
🎅 Offers an origin story for a familiar figure. Rather than starting with an established Santa Claus, the movie builds an explanation for how an ordinary toy maker becomes the character children know from tradition. Students get to see mythology constructed piece by piece rather than simply presented as fact.
⚠️ Depicts the fallout of unchecked ambition. B.Z.'s scheme to seize control of Christmas ultimately traps him, and his own greed is what leaves him stranded with no way out. The story ties his downfall directly to the choices he made rather than treating it as incidental.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated PG.
📋 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)
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- The antagonist is shown smoking a cigar and drinking alcohol in most of his scenes.
- A boy is tied up and left alone in a dark basement before being rescued by another character.
- Mild language includes occasional use of "crap," "sucks," and "hell."
- No sexual content.
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. This movie gives an ELA class a clear origin story structure built around a sharp moral contrast, selfless giving against corporate greed, along with a shift in setting from magical North Pole workshop to gritty 1980s New York City. The guide includes chronological comprehension questions and creative writing tasks that push students beyond simple recall into imaginative and narrative writing.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The movie's straightforward narrative arc and clear visual distinction between its two settings make it accessible for English language learners following the plot even before full fluency. The guide's chronological comprehension questions give ESL students a structured way to track the story's events and demonstrate understanding.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. With a set of chronological comprehension questions, a toy design and creative writing activity, and a crossword and word search, the guide gives a substitute everything needed to run the session. Answer keys are included for the comprehension questions and the crossword and word search. A substitute can manage the lesson without having seen the movie.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. This movie's blend of Christmas mythology and lighter satire makes it a flexible choice for home learners looking for a seasonal watch with some substance behind it. The guide's comprehension questions, toy design activity, and creative writing tasks are all suited to independent work, giving a homeschool student a full session built around the movie.
💙 SEL Teachers. Found family and belonging run through this story, from a homeless boy and a neglected girl both finding a place with Santa's family, to Patch's fall from grace and eventual return to the elves who once counted on him. The guide does not include dedicated SEL activities, but the comprehension questions give students a structured task that keeps them engaged with these dynamics as they watch.
🌟 Supporting All Learners Movie guides can be a wonderfully calm fit for students with autism, learning difficulties, and mild to severe disabilities. The structured format gives every student a clear purpose during viewing, easing uncertainty and allowing them to engage at their own pace. If you teach in a special education or learning support setting, you may find this guide a gentle and practical resource. Find out more about why movies work for diverse learners.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 7-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
30 questions in chronological order covering the full movie. Answer key is included.
Part 2: Creativity
Two creative writing sections. In the first, students imagine they are an elf working for Santa and design a new outdoor toy, then draw and label the design and write instructions for how it works. In the second, students imagine they have spent a year in the North Pole and recount the interesting activities and things they did while spending time with the elves and Santa.
Part 3: Crossword and Word Search
Students complete a 10 clue crossword, then use those answers to find them in a word search. Answer key is included.
“Engaging yet straightforward questions. Lovely resource.”
— Shauna D.
“These are great....why spend hours searching for something like this when it has already been made for you? Thank you!!!!”
— Daniel B.
How These Guides Work: From Movie to Lesson
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 that can actually be assessed: comprehension questions show whether students followed the plot, and the activities beyond them show whether they understood it.
