Ella Enchanted book and a movie night

Hi! Future Ticia 2023 is updating this post, mainly the logo, and adding a few things to our Ella Enchanted book club. Almost a decade later, this is still one of my daughter’s favorite comfort books, and it’s still one I love to go back and read from time to time as a comfort book. I now return you to past Ticia 2015. It’s been a while since I posted one of our book and a movie nights, and since I last posted with Mr. Popper’s Penguins, we’ve had about 5 more movies we’ve read and watched.

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Supplies for this Ella Enchanted movie night

Read the book: Ella Enchanted*

Watch the movie (be warned the characters are much used and abused): Ella Enchanted*

Food in lots more detail below

Ella Enchanted is a fabulously fun retelling of Cinderella, and I love it.  However the movie….. it’s not as good, but I knew my kids would enjoy the silliness, my Mommy heart sang when at the end of the movie Princess stood up and declared, “That totally betrayed the book,” and will now tell anyone her thoughts on the matter.

Ella Enchanted learning activity

This time I wanted the kids to ask questions as they read the book.  This is their first time reading a fractured fairy tale, and I’m hoping it isn’t their last because it’s one of my favorite genres.  So I got some butcher paper (actually I think it was just Easel Paper*), and taped it to the wall.  As they thought of questions from reading the book they came and wrote them down.

I also encouraged them to write down their guesses of which fairy tale Ella Enchanted was.

Eventually, the paper was filled up with questions and answers.  At our end-of-book discussion, we talked about all their questions and what the answers might be.  Actually, I think I might hang one up again for our current book (The Jungle Book*).

Ella Enchanted Discussion Questions

There are a lot of fun discussions to be had with this book.  Here’s a few I thought of:

1. Ella thinks her gift is a curse, what gift do you think would be a curse?
2. Did Ella make the right decision when she ran away from school?
3. What do you think is small magic or big magic?
4. Which fairy tale do you think Ella Enchanted is based off of?

Ella Enchanted book club snacks

Hi, Future Ticia 2023 here, back when we originally did this we did not have a lot of snacks, this was early on in our snacking time, and since then I know we would have had a whole slew more snacks including something to act as a meal.

This is my kids’ highlight of the whole experience.  I think this is also the last movie I had full ownership of the snacks.  After this, the kids started giving suggestions and helping make and decorate them.

Pumpkin carriages- These were made with pumpkin muffins and Rolo* on toothpicks.  I put a bit of green frosting on the top for the vine.

The kids got a hold of some leftover ones and made “Mommy’s carriage” a multi-deck monstrosity of sugar.  But they were quite proud of it.

• Ella’s book- In the movie Ella had an enchanted book that was constantly changing and telling amusing stories.  In the movie they destroyed that concept with a horrid talking book.  I took a Hershey’s Nuggets* and put a bit of frosting on it to act as bookmark.
• Mandy’s Treats- In the book Mandy is a genius in the kitchen (in the movie she’s bordering on being an idiot) and all of her foods are healthy AND delicious, so we made apple muffins to represent her treats.
• Pumpkin candy corn (apparently officially called Fall Mellowcreme Pumpkins Candy*)
• Apple- centaurs love apples, so this gets something slightly healthy
• pumpkin pie- because I love pumpkin pie, you could also go to our Harry Potter book club for another pumpkin snack
• chicken noodle soup- or some sort of soup for what Mandy makes Ella and her mother

I need to reread the book to add in more snacks.

For the rest of our book and a movie nights click on my awesome book and a movie logo.

If you’d like to see other people’s brilliant book extension activities (and a few of my own) check out my book and activity pinterest board:

Follow Ticia Adventures in Mommydom’s board book and activity on Pinterest.

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