Taking a Bus Trip

A city Bus Ride helps youngsters as they watch older children go to school and are sad to be left behind, or sometimes caregivers just need to get outside for daily activities, even in cold winter months. A city bus ride is inexpensive, makes children feel special, and can teach many skills.

Materials Needed:

 Bus schedule, city map, and change

What to do:

  In advance, call the bus station for the schedule, closest bus stop, cost, and rules for snacks. Many cities have all the information on-line. Public transportation is  a cheap way to explore.  Buses will often go by museums and other community stops, but you can ride just for the fun of it. Keep the trip short and give children the fare to pay themselves. Teach good bus safety habits like sitting and using a soft voice.

  Because objects might be zooming by, keep the activities simple.  Depending upon the children’s ages, search for objects of a certain color, count the number of white trucks, stop signs, traffic lights, or gas stations. Look for different shapes like squares, rectangles, rhombuses (diamonds), trapezoids, circles, octagons (stop signs) and triangles. You could also look for the alphabet.

   Teach simple economics by pointing out delivery trucks bringing goods to stores and people unloading boxes. Explain that it takes trucks, many people, and hard work to get food and merchandise in stores.

   Look for police cars, city workers, mail carriers, emergency vehicles, school buses, package delivery trucks, and explain what they are doing and that it takes many people working together to make a community.

  You can teach a little geography, too. Point out hills, rivers, highways, turns in the road, intersections, bridges, and other features. Use a route map to show children where you are and track your progress.

How will this help my child?

Children need carefree conversations that are more than directions to get dressed, eat their vegetables, brush their teeth, etc. These conversations with adults help build vocabulary to use in reading and writing.

  Conversation with young children takes a little practice, but it is absolutely essential for success in school. If adults ask children to look for things, listen for sounds, and describe what is going on, children will start asking questions and the conversation will flow.

What Other Activities Can We Do?

  Occasionally take the bus with young children to visit other places in your city like libraries, the credit union, bank, post office, museums, recycling center, public buildings, markets, religious buildings, and sport centers.

Illustration by: Mark Nowicki

For more winter activities to help your children succeed in school and have a life time of learning see the authors’ book Learning Through the Seasons in museums, bookstores, and in E-book form atSmashwords.com. 

Are We There, Yet?

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  How much longer before we get there?  How many more days before my birthday? How many piano practices this week? Young children often have a difficult time waiting because time can’t be touched, seen, heard, tasted, or smelled. Listen to this activity online at the WNMU Podcasts

Materials:

  Paper, crayons, and scissors

 What to do:

  Difficult concepts like time are much easier for children to understand when they are involved in discussing and crossing something off.  These ideas can also be used to help manage chores around the house, change habits and behavior, and traveling.

Traveling

  Children get impatient while traveling.  They want to be there NOW. Decide on a picture or symbol to represent a length of time. Children can prepare pictures of cars or airplanes representing each half hour before the trip. The drawings can be taped to a car window, placed in a backpack, and removed as each period passes. Then children can count how much time is left.

Special Events

  The time before holidays or family visits can seem endless for children. A week before an event, cut out symbols for the holiday and line them up on a window. Every morning children can take down one object and place it in a basket. Then count how many objects are left on the window.

    Families can help children put something up to mark time instead of taking one down. As an example, for Christmas you can create a paper tree for a window and place paper ornaments on the tree until the big day.

  If people are coming for a visit make a little calendar and X off the days. You can also draw faces representing the visitors and place them on a calendar.  This is also a good time to start learning days of the week, counting, and subtracting. Children learn more quickly when information is important to them.

Developing Habits

  Families can tape a calendar and list of three age appropriate chores to the refrigerator. They can add stickers when children complete assigned family chores or accomplish a task. Children may earn a special toy or money for being successful.  Every management plan becomes old and must be replaced or tweaked. Keep your plan and expectations realistic to your children’s ages. Praise even little successes. 

Photo: Christen, Blaine. dali.jpg. June 2008. Pics4Learning. 12 Dec 2012

--> For more fall activities to help your children succeed in school and have a life time of learning see the authors’ book Learning Through the Seasons in museums, bookstores, and in E-book form atSmashwords.com.

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