Community Helpers - Day 7, Bus Driver

We started this Day at breakfast by reading the Participation Story.  Bibbity Bop Bus Stop is a story about a bus driver picking up passengers.  I gave two cards to each child for them to act out the characters they were given.  Each passenger did something when they get on the bus.  The girl smiled, the boy hiccuped, the firefighter coughed, the policeman blew his whistle, and then the elephant got on the bus and was tiptoeing carefully when he tripped.  Bibbity bop, bibbity - Pop!  Oh no, what popped? 

Here is the firefighter coughing.

The girl smiling.

The police officer . . . scratching, hmm, I think he was suppose to blow his whistle.

Lachlan was quick to know what popped when the elephant tripped - the tire.  There are discussion questions on the back.  The second question asks, what should the passengers do?  How are they going to get where they were going?  The third question on the back is more of a suggestion, have them use the picture card to make their own ending to the story.  It just so happened that we had two airplanes and a horse at the table, no really, they just happened to be there.  What are the chances. 

 So the firefighter took an airplane to work.

 Lachlan was the first to have the airplane idea.  He took his boy home on the airplane as well.

 Since we were all out of airplanes, Lucy gave the girl a ride home on her horse.

They had so much fun with this story telling.  I love the idea of leaving the end of the story open for them to finish.  I might just have to do this with them while riding in the car.  

The other two got down from the table but Lachlan and I were still there.  The next lesson I had picked out for table time, if the opportunity arose was Riding on the Bus.  There are meant to me multiple parts to this lesson, but we just got to the first part.  I gave Lachlan the bus paper.  Each window on the bus is empty and they are to draw themselves and others on the bus.  There is also a line to write in your name.  In addition it is a great cutting exercise as you were suppose to cut out the bus. 

This is how I got Lachlan set up.  I put the dry erase board in front of him with his name written on it for him to copy.  He was holding the pen in a fist.  I was able to hand it to him and show him how to hold on to the squishy part of this pen and he grabbed on perfectly for the writing of his name. 

Here is his finished product.  I am so proud of his name here.  His A and C are backwards but the rest looks pretty perfect.  He also really tried to keep his name with in the line which is the first time I have seen him do that.  He normally writes where ever and as big as he wants with no awareness of the space available.  So I take this as another great stride forward in his writing abilities. 

Today's lessons came with a new matching game!  These are a favorite for us.  We ended up going out to dinner to a local restaurant and I packed the game along with me.  The cards themselves are shaped like school buses and the backs are the characters from the story we read earlier.   Who of course are also community helpers which is the theme for the month.  Now I have two sets in my purse, ready to go.

The next day Lachlan and I worked in his My Little Journal for the lesson Yellow Bus.  We talked about why a school bus is the color yellow and we drew a bus on the yellow page of his journal.  He then colored it yellow.  Next he was instructed to draw another bus and color it any color he wanted.  I could tell I was about to lose his attention to I helped him finish up the bus he had already started to draw and asked him to color it any color he wanted.  He chose yellow.