Bus Learning Activities

April 18, 2023 by Sarah White Leave a Comment

Here’s another fun holiday you’ve never heard of: April 25 is school bus driver day. It’s as good a day as any to celebrate the drivers who get our kiddos wherever they need to go, but it’s also a fun time to bring out some activities related to buses. These are also great for back to school time.

I’m sure you’ve sung the “Wheels on the Bus” song a million times in your career as a parent or teacher. These printables make it easier and even more fun for little ones to learn and sing along. Print out the pictures and mount them on sticks and the whole classroom (or busload of kids) can see exactly where you are in the song. These come from Teaching 2 and 3 Year Olds.

If your kiddos need some reminders about bus safety, check out these ideas (accompanying printables are available from Teachers Pay Teachers) from Teach with Me.

This bus-themed measurement activity from 123 Homeschool 4 Me is a great way to show kids that you don’t always have to measure with a ruler. It uses cubes to measure buses of different sizes, but you could use other units of measure you have handy as well.

Or use your counting bears to count out how many bears go on the bus with these printables from ABCs of Literacy.

Match upper and lower case letters on the front and back of a bus with the cute printables from Preschool Play and Learn. Work on recognition of a few letters at a time or match the whole alphabet for older kids.

Practice color identification by matching kids with the same color shirt to the bus with that colors stripe with these printables from Tot Schooling.

And if you’re looking for some school bus crafts, check out this roundup from A Little Pinch of Perfect. Or grab some of these activities (some are crafts, some not) from Sea of Knowledge.

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Gross Motor Math Ideas

With little kids especially, linking learning to physical activity really does help them learn. Movement can help kids focus, and it just keeps them from sitting still all day, which isn’t good for anyone.

The good news is lots of different learning activities can be adopted to get kids moving while they learn, so let’s look at some math and number activities that use gross motor skills.

Probably the most obvious thing would be hopscotch, which helps kids count while they hop. You can also mix up the numbers, do skip counting with the numbers, give kids a simple math problem and have them hop to the correct answer, and on and on.

This number hop game from Gift of Curiosity is a more chaotic version, with number flash cards on the floor that kids can hop, skip or jump to as you call them out (this one is more for individual number identification than counting). It’s a great indoor option if it’s too hot, cold or rainy out to do traditional hopscotch, too.

This painter’s tape number line idea from Days with Grey doesn’t involve quite as much movement, but kids can move around while they place things on the number line and work on learning about one to one correspondence. In the blog post they use shoes, but you can count anything you’ve got handy. (Be warned when I visited this website had an ad that continually took up the whole page, but you can get the idea pretty quickly.)

One of the important tasks of learning numbers is learning a parent’s phone number just in case it’s ever needed, or how to dial 911 in case on an emergency. Teaching Mama has a great way to practice telephone numbers and get some movement in with a giant telephone keypad made out of paper plates. You can also use this for counting practice, but it’s a great idea for learning phone numbers, too.

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