Do your kids love the Magic School Bus? Here’s a great way to use the series in your homeschool.
The Homeschool Belle is offering Primary Science Lesson Plans for Magic School Bus DVD’s for free on Teachers Pay Teachers.
UPDATE: This resource is not currently on TPT because the author, The Homeschool Belle, is updating it. She shared the files for folks to use anyway on google docs but says that some links still need to be updated.
UPDATE II: The Homeschool Belle has now deleted the google doc file. You can access the previous version here.
Update III: You can now access the older version here.
The lesson plans are offered in a spreadsheet format which is viewable with Microsoft Excel (you can download the viewer for free here).
Each week features four days of activities — the Magic School Bus video the first day, a recommended book on the same subject the second day, a related project from the internet the third day, and another video the last day (often from Brain Pop Junior).
The year’s worth of lesson plans begins in late August and ends in mid-May. There are no lesson plans for the weeks around Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s Day and Easter.
The lesson plans are arranged by themes that sometimes correspond with the time of year. Eggs are the focus the week before Easter, for instance, hearts and circulation around Valentine’s Day, and the week of St. Patrick’s Day features making a leprechaun trap (construction is the theme of that week).
The lessons are listed as suitable for pre-k through fourth grade. They are quite adaptable and should be suitable for many ages.
The lessons are generally secular, with occasional religious content (the week before Easter features a movie about the resurrection and a book about resurrection eggs, for instance). Homeschoolers of all faiths should be able to make use of them.
Netflix sometimes provides The Magic School Bus through its streaming service. The series is also available at most libraries, through sites like Amazon.com and at stores such as Barnes and Noble and Walmart.
