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 rooted in a classic. Based on Enid Blyton's beloved Faraway Tree series, the movie connects students to a piece of British literary heritage that has been enjoyed by children for generations.
📵 A timely message about technology. The children's tech addiction and their gradual reconnection with nature and family gives students something genuinely relatable to reflect on.
🎨 Rich material for creative writing. The fantastical lands at the top of the tree invite students to imagine and invent. The variety of worlds keeps the creative possibilities genuinely open, which makes the follow-up writing tasks feel purposeful rather than prescribed.
👨👩👧 Themes that travel well. Family, belonging, adapting to change, and the value of imagination are universal themes that work across cultures and age groups.
😄 Genuinely enjoyable to watch. The movie has real warmth and charm. Students are engaged from early on, which makes the comprehension work feel natural rather than forced.
📚 A bridge to the original novel. For classes working with the book, this is a natural pairing. For others, it is an introduction to Enid Blyton's world that may inspire further reading.
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:
- Mild fantasy peril and moments of tension in the magical lands
- Slapstick physical comedy that may be slightly boisterous
- Some rude humour aimed at a family audience
- Brief mild language
- Themes of family estrangement and parental disconnection, handled gently
How My Movie Guide Helps You Teach It
📚 English Language Arts Teachers. Three sets of differentiated comprehension questions give you genuine flexibility depending on your class. The storyboard activity develops sequencing and narrative structure, while the creative writing tasks build descriptive language and imaginative storytelling in a structured, scaffolded way.
🗣️ ESL and ELL Teachers. The multiple-choice question set works particularly well with language learners, reducing the writing pressure while still assessing comprehension. The guided creative writing option includes sentence starters and vocabulary support, giving ESL students a structured entry point into the task.
🔬 Science Teachers. If you are using the movie for accountability during a science topic or as an end-of-term activity, the comprehension questions and puzzle activities keep students productively engaged. The guide gives you something to point to, and students something to submit.
🌐 Social Studies Teachers. The movie's themes around technology, nature, and the way modern families communicate offer a strong starting point for broader social discussion. The written tasks sit naturally alongside any unit on community, environment, or digital citizenship.
🎬 Substitute Teachers and Cover Lessons. Hand it to a sub and walk away. Everything they need is included, with teacher directions, organised materials, and answer keys for the comprehension questions.
🏠 Homeschool Parents. The guide covers comprehension, creative writing, storyboarding, and puzzle activities across 16 pages. It is structured enough to feel like a proper unit of work, while the differentiation options mean you can match it to where your child is working.
🌟 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.
Honest note: if you teach a subject not mentioned above and need curriculum-specific materials tied to your standards, this guide will not replace those. It is best used alongside your own subject materials to keep students focused during the movie itself.
What's Inside the Guide
This is a 16-page classroom-ready resource.
Part 1: Differentiated Comprehension Questions
Three complete question sets to suit different ability levels and purposes. The first includes 40 full-sentence questions in chronological order, tracking the movie from beginning to end. The second is a lighter 30-question version, with 10 questions removed from the 40-question set. The third is a 30-question multiple-choice set with three options per question, well suited to younger students or language learners. Answer keys are included for all three sets.
Part 2: Storyboard
Students illustrate and describe nine key scenes from the movie, covering the beginning, middle, and end. Each panel includes space for a drawing and a short sentence explaining what is happening. The comprehension questions from Part 1 can be used to help students sequence events correctly.
Part 3: Creative Writing
Students imagine they have climbed to the top of the Faraway Tree and discovered their own magical land. They draw and describe their invented world using creative and descriptive language. Two options are included: a guided version with sentence starters and vocabulary support for students who need more scaffolding, and a more open-ended version that encourages extended descriptive writing. Example answers are provided.
Part 4: Puzzle Activities
A collection of fun themed puzzles based on the movie, including a word search, a maze challenge, and a secret word activity. Answers are included for all puzzles.
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.
- 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.
