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You are here: Home / All categories / School Bus (Virtual Book Club)

School Bus (Virtual Book Club)

August 19, 2013 • 8 Comments

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It’s Virtual Book Club time!  This month we are exploring books by Donald Crews.  Crews was a favorite in my former first grade classroom.  I often used his work during writing workshop time.  The children loved to emulate his work and the topics and length of story were perfect for this age group.  Since my boys are obsessed with school buses, we chose Crew’s book, School Bus for this month’s Virtual Book Club!

school bus

Told from the perspective of the school buses, the story starts at the bus lot as empty buses start their day.  Buses travel through the town, picking up kids and taking them to school.  After school, the routine is repeated until finally the students and buses are back at their homes.  This is definitely a timely read with school beginning for many children.

Did you know that Crews usually includes a picture of himself somewhere in his illustrations?  See if you can find him in School Bus!

Literacy Activity to Accompany School Bus by Donald Crews: School Bus Theme Bath

School Bus book and bathtub literacy activities from growingbookbybook.com

Materials We Used:  yellow foam school buses (I found 10 pre-cut ones in Target’s dollar bins this month.  We used 5 for the bath), 3 foam circles (red, green and yellow), yellow foam squares in various sizes (about 20), a permanent marker, and yellow food coloring (optional)

Build litreracy in the bath with wheels on the bus from growingbookbybook.com

My boys love the song, “The Wheels on the Bus”.  Singing is a great way to model fluency,  build vocabulary and strengthen comprehension. On each bus I highlighted a part of the bus and wrote the word for the designated part.  As we sang each verse of the song, the boys found the correct bus and “drove” it to our stoplight (also made with red, green and yellow foam circles).  The kids had a good time pretending to slow down for a yellow light, stopping for a red light and zooming through a green light with the buses.

Sorting letters in the bathtub

On the little foam squares, I wrote capital and lowercase “B’s”.  I sprinkled them on top of the water to float.  The boys then fished the letters out and sorted them into two categories (uppercase and lowercase) on the bathtub wall.

Labeling in the bathtub

My 2 1/2 year-old also enjoyed labeling each bus with a letter “B”.

For a little extra color, we tinted our water yellow too.  They have played with the buses nightly since I introduced them!

Would you like to explore more books and activities by Donald Crews?  Check out the posts from great bloggers participating in the book club.  And, if you have a post about Donald Crew’s work, please link it so we can all learn and enjoy.

The new year of Virtual Book Club starts in September!  I’m thrilled to be participating with other great bloggers again this year.  There is an amazing line up of authors that will be featured this year including Bill Martin Jr., Karma Wilson, Marcus Pfister, Laura Numeroff and Eric Carle.  Please join us and read books by the chosen author each month.  And as always, there will be plenty of links for you to explore follow-up activities and projects to go with the books by each author.  See you in September for Bill Martin Jr. books!

Are you following Growing Book by Book on Facebook?  If you haven’t liked us, please do so!  We have some great conversations about literacy on the page.  I also share some of my great literacy finds from other bloggers.  You can also join the over 2,500 people following my Pinterest boards.  This is another great treasure trove of ideas.  If you still can’t get enough of Growing Book by Book, you can follow on Twitter, Google + or subscribe to the RSS Feed.  Don’t you just love feeling so connected to Growing Book by Book?

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8 Comments Filed Under: All categories Tagged With: activities for donald crews books, donald crews, theme baths

About Jodie Rodriguez

Jodie Rodriguez is a mom of two young boys and an early childhood/elementary educator with over 20 years of experience. Jodie's passion is helping parents, teachers, librarians and anyone else interested in nurturing and reaching ALL of our youngest growing readers.

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  1. iGameMom says

    August 27, 2013 at 10:35 pm

    Love the learning idea. I am featuring this on iGameMom http://wp.me/p2t50R-28N thanks for sharing at Mom’s Library.

    Reply
  2. Cerys @ Rainy Day Mum says

    August 20, 2013 at 2:15 am

    What a fun activity – need to do this with my two when we get around to reading the book.

    Reply
  3. Trisha @ Inspiration Laboratories says

    August 19, 2013 at 4:52 pm

    I didn’t know Donald Crews adds a picture of himself somewhere in his books. We’ll have to look for him when we read his books. A school bus bath is such a fun idea for bath time!

    Reply
  4. Barbara Mojica says

    August 19, 2013 at 2:32 pm

    What fun ideas for playing with a school bus! I was fortunate enough to meet Donald Crews at a children’s book festival with fellow authors. Donald has been a favorite author of mine since my children (now in their thirties) were toddlers.

    Reply
    • JodieRodriguez says

      August 19, 2013 at 5:09 pm

      Barbara, that is so neat! I love when I get to meet authors and I think it’s important for kids to be able to do so too.

      Reply
  5. Samantha @ Stir the Wonder says

    August 19, 2013 at 7:43 am

    Cute! I think I’m going to have to pay a visit to Target & see if I can get some of those buses!

    Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Creative Alphabet Learning Activities – Mom’s Library says:
    August 27, 2013 at 11:11 pm

    […] I like the idea of introducing the letter B with buses in the bathtub.  They also tied the learning with a book, find out more at School Bus Virtual Book Club. […]

    Reply
  2. Ready. Set. Read! says:
    August 27, 2013 at 7:02 pm

    Hands on Early Literacy Activities and Mom’s Library

    It’s Tuesday! That means the library is OPEN. Mom’s Library, that is. Each Tuesday I co-host Mom’s Library

    Reply

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