[Pecker]

My little girl Freya turned two earlier in the week, and her big sister bought her Ice Age as a gift.

Now I've tried to bring Freya up on films, and we show her Wall-E, The Jungle Book, Sleeping Beauty, and Stuart Little. We also show her the Pixar Shorts and she regularly sits with us through films – she sat and watched The Adventures of Baron Munchausen with us - all 2 hours plus - and was absolutely transfixed.

Anyway, we were watching Ice Age and she'd sat in silence staring at the screen for the first hour or so, but then it got to the bit where (spoilers)...

...the animals give the baby back to its dad, and the baby turns and runs back to give the animals a goodbye hug...

...and Freya burst out crying. She stood up on her half of the sofa and ran over and gave me a big hug.

She clearly understood what was going on (more or less), which is testament to the film makers, but I thought it'd just be nice pictures to her.

Well, as a teacher I know the importance of getting kids into books as soon as possible (which we do) and I hope from this that she's understanding the language of cinema from an early age, and that this will result in her getting more out of film as she grows up.

I wondered if anyone else had any comments or similar experiences.

Steve W

[binbag]

We've had film night just about every week since the kids were pre-schoolers about 5 years ago. We rotate who chooses and there is a rule that you can't choose the same film twice in a row. Pizza and popcorn are the usual fare for these nights and if its your night to choose you can invite a friend. They always look forward to the night and keep close watch of whose turn is next.

When it comes to my turn I generally choose films that I think they might like or stuff that I think they are ready for that I want them to see. For me, its great that Young Frankenstein and Roxanne have become their choices instead of mine.

Films are chosen by content rather than certification (they have never seen a film on the big screen that I have not previewed if it is above their age rating) and I try to mix it up so The Incredible Shrinking Man is as likely to get an outing as Monte Carlo or Bust as well as modern CG animation.

When friends have been invited over its been notable how many of them can't sit through an entire film with nothing else to do so this might be a learned skill for my kids.

[Leej]

Nice little story that Steve.

When we watched Ice Age ours never reacted like that but I do remember that our youngest ran out of the room, scared at the were's the baby (I think that's what the tiger done) scene. Bless him.

We also have a film night most weeks and it's been good to see how much over time the films they want to watch have changed. The only time I have a say is when they want the Ben 10 movie on for the thousandth time