E.T. - Movie Night

We have done many movie nights.  But, we have always simply closed the drapes, turned off the lights, microwaved popcorn, and watched a family appropriate movie.  But, reading so many blogs on the Internet has inspired me to add some crafts and activities to our "movie nights."  So, last week we did our first extra-special movie night with "E.T."

We started by painting one of our fingers red, to replicate what happens to the tip of E.T.'s finger when he heals a flower or a person. 

Then we colored pictures of E.T.  In retrospect, we probably should have done this first, because the girls had to hold their wet red finger tips in the air.

Then we explained what "bait" is and told them how the little boy Elliot used Reese's Pieces to lure E.T. into his house.  We made an interactive display of this part of the movie on a poster board, making trails of candy between several princess figurines and a drawing of a house.

 Of course Sabrina sampled the candy:

During the movie we allowed Sabrina to have a few more pieces of candy every time she saw Reese's Pieces on the screen.  At first she watched the movie very carefully, looking for the candy.  After awhile there were fewer scenes with candy, so Sabrina screamed out "Oh, it is so long between the candy scenes!!"

I wasn't sure if the girls liked the movie.  But a few days later, I found Catherine with the remote control to our DVR system: she had done a search for E.T. and scheduled it to record!  I had no idea she knew how to do that ... she definitely has her father's technological tendencies.  She said she wanted to watch the movie again and I took it back to the library.

Yesterday the girls walked at the pool with their towels completely draped over their heads.  I told them they could not walk blindly like that and asked them what I was doing.  Sabrina said they were pretending they were E.T. out trick or treating.