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.
🏠 A story about what home really means. The boy spends the whole movie searching for a physical place, but by the end he learns that home is about the people who love him, not a location. This gives students a concrete example to think about the difference between a place and a feeling of belonging.
🦔 Friendship forms between characters who start as strangers, or even threats. The mole becomes the boy's companion almost immediately, but the fox begins as a genuine danger to both of them. Watching the group's dynamic shift from fear to trust gives students a clear model of how relationships can change over time.
💛 Kindness is shown as a deliberate choice, not just a feeling. When the mole finds the fox trapped and afraid, he chooses to help him even though the fox has already threatened his life. It is a small moment with a big message about choosing compassion even when it is not safe or easy.
🐴 The horse's secret adds a layer about hiding who you are. The horse turns out to be a pegasus, something he has kept hidden out of fear of how others might react. His decision to finally reveal this to his friends gives students something to think about regarding self-acceptance and being honest with people who care about you.
📖 The movie is adapted from a bestselling book, giving students a comparison point. The film is based on Charlie Mackesy's illustrated book of the same name, which built its following through short, simple exchanges between the same four characters. Students familiar with the book have a ready-made way to compare how the story translates from page to screen.
🌌 The ending offers a genuine emotional payoff without a tidy resolution. Rather than reaching the village he set out to find, the boy chooses to stay with his friends. It is a quiet, understated ending that leaves room for students to discuss what they think the right ending would have been.
Age Suitability and Content
This movie is rated U.
⚠️ Things to be aware of:
- A fox threatens to harm the mole before the group becomes friends.
- The mole is swept into a river and briefly in danger before being rescued by the fox.
- A winter storm puts the travelers at risk at one point in the story.
- There is no sexual content, strong language, or substance use in the movie.
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
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. The movie gives an ELA class a complete short story to study, with a clear arc that moves from the boy's isolation through a series of encounters to a resolution that reframes his original goal. Students build sequencing and story structure skills through the storyboard task, narrative condensing through the synopsis, and character analysis and perspective-taking through the character writing activity. Two differentiated comprehension question sets keep the whole class accountable while working at different levels.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The movie's dialogue is simple, warm, and repetitive in structure, with short exchanges between characters that make the language easy to follow even for developing English speakers. The visual storytelling carries much of the meaning independently of the dialogue, and the guide's multiple choice question set works well for ESL and ELL students building comprehension and vocabulary alongside their peers.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. Every activity in this guide is self-contained and organized in sequence, with answer keys included for both sets of comprehension questions. A substitute can run the full session without having seen the movie, since the questions, pair work, and writing prompts all include clear instructions students can follow independently.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. This short film's length makes it a natural fit for a single home learning session, and its themes of friendship, honesty, and finding where you belong offer plenty to talk through afterward. The guide's storyboard and synopsis task works well solo, though the pair work questions would need adapting for a single student, perhaps by having them answer the questions as a written reflection instead.
💙 SEL Teachers. The movie's four characters spend the entire story naming their fears out loud and helping each other through them, giving an SEL class a concrete example of vulnerability and support in action. The pair work questions ask students to discuss the characters' choices together, and the comprehension questions keep the class accountable during viewing, though the guide has no dedicated SEL activity beyond these.
🌟 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 9-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Comprehension Questions
Two differentiated sets in chronological order, mostly present simple tense. Set one has 20 questions requiring full sentence answers. Set two has 19 multiple choice questions with three answer options each, with the final question requiring a full sentence answer. The multiple choice set works well for ESL and ELL students. Answer keys are included for both sets.
Part 2: Pair Work and Character Writing
Students pair up to answer five short questions together, then come back together as a class to discuss their answers, with example answers included. Students also write about their favorite character by following a set of question prompts and drawing a picture of that character.
Part 3: Storyboard and Synopsis
Students draw a nine scene storyboard covering what they consider the most important parts of the movie, with a brief description for each scene. Using their storyboard as a guide, they then write a synopsis of the movie.
“Children LOVED the book and this resource has many great questions for opening meaningful discussions amongst children of all ages Thank you”
— Sonia M.
“LOVE this story and LOVE this resource to accompany the video each year (plus the differentiated options).”
— Amanda H.
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.
