Explorastory

Beep Beep!  Coming through!  An Explorastory theme on buses!

Books:

“I’m Your Bus” by Marilyn Singer

“The Wheels on the Bus: A Book with Parts that Move” by Paul Zelinsky

“Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” by Mo Willems

Click Here to Order These Books on the Heights Library Catalog

Rhymes:

One Lonely Bus Driver (We did this great rhyme using a flannel board and finger puppets)

One lonely bus driver all alone and blue
He picked up a passenger and then there were two.
Two people riding, they stopped by a tree
They picked up a passenger, and then there were three.
Three people riding, they stopped by a store
They picked up a passenger, and then there were four.
Four people riding, happy and alive,
They picked up a passenger, and then there were five.
Five people riding open swung the door
Four passengers got off the bus,
The driver’s alone once more.

School Bus

School Bus, School Bus,
Coming Down the Road,
Picking Up the Children,
What a Happy Load

The Bus

There is a painted bus, 
With twenty painted seats, 
It carries painted people 
Along the painted streets. 
They pull the painted bell, 
The painted driver stops, 
And they all get out together 
At the little painted shops.

Songs:

The Wheels on the Bus

The wheels on the bus go round and round
Round and round, round and round
The wheels on the bus go round and round
All through the town.
(Roll hands over each other)

The wipers on the bus go “Swish, swish, swish,”
(Put arms together in front of you and’swish’ like windshield wipers)

The horn on the bus goes “Beep, beep, beep”
(Pretend to honk horn)

The baby on the bus says, “Wah, wah, way!”
(Fisted hands in front of eyesand rub them like baby crying)

The people on the bus say, “Shh, shh, shh,”
(Put pointer finger to mouth to ‘shhh’)

The mommy on the bus says, “I love you,”
(Point to self on ‘I’,right hand over heart on ‘love’, andpoint to other on ‘you’)

Transportation Song

(to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

Twinkle twinkle traffic light 
 Standing on the corner bright 
 Red means stop green means go 
orange  means go slow 
 Twinkle twinkle traffic light 
 Standing on the corner bright

Bus Song

(to the tune of Pop Goes the Weasel)

I drive the bus around the town 
I stop at every corner 
My blinking lights and breaks go on 
Swish goes the door 
A dollar for a ride around town 
A quarter for a transfer 
Put your money in the slot, 
Swish goes the door

Art:

When we showed the children the flannel board of the bus, we talked about the different shapes on a bus (rectangular windows, circular wheels, etc.).  This helped them make their very own buses out of different shapes cut out of paper.  They glued the shapes together to make the bus and then decorated faces using markers

We saved “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” for last and let the children have their own cut-outs of our special Pigeon for their paper buses if they wanted to include him on the bus (or outside the bus, if they didn’t give in to Pigeon’s pleadings!).