El orfanato Movie Guide

This movie guide is to accompany Guillermo del Toro's mystery thriller "El orfanato", and it was written for intermediate students. "El orfanato" is a very compelling movie that could be a great fit to any supernatural unit, or to the novels La calaca alegre or La Llorona de Mazatlán.

El orfanato is the story of a woman who brings her family back to her childhood home, which used to be an orphanage for handicapped children. Before long, her son starts to communicate with an invisible new friend right before he disappears, and their lives change forever.

OJO: This movie is R rated due to some disturbing content. Make sure you watch it before you buy these accompanying materials!

This packet contains:

1. Pre-watching activities:

a) Game “Un, dos, tres, ¡toca la pared!”

b) Reading about Guillermo del Toro with activity “La torre del saber”

c) Vocabulary on Quizlet (a set with descriptions in Spanish and one with only pictures)

d) “Lotería” game with vocabulary

e) Prediction activity

f) Characters descriptions on Quizlet

g) Activity “Columnas informativas” about the movie characters

h) PQA questions

i) Running dictation for predictions

2. While watching activities (the movie was divided in 4 parts):

a) Reading with questios for after watching Part 1

b) Order the events activity for Part1

c) Reading for after watching Part 2

d) Marker game with T/F questions about Part2

e) T/F questions worksheet about Part2

f) Fan N’Pick activity for Part2

g) GooseChase activity

h) Reading for after watching Part3

i) 15 second drawing activity for Part 3

j) “Puntos al azar” activity for Part 3

k) Questions worksheet for Part 3

l) Reading for after Part 4 with questions

m) Memory game for Part 4

3. Post-watching activities:

a) Team talk

b) ¿Quién lo dijo? activity

c) Characters and their problems matching activity

d) Talk, talk, trade activity

e) Twitter writing activity

f) Assessment Part A (with choices) ~ Presentational and interpersonal

g) Assessment Part B (with choices) ~ Presentational and interpersonal

OJO: This movie guide order of activities is not designed for a day by day basis since each teacher might spend less or more time in certain activities, or skip some of them. Also, there are no daily goals included, since what gets done every day will vary depending on what each teacher choses to do with his/her students, or based on the length of the individual classes.