bus – joyful parenting

Wheels on Bus (5)

Veronika and I had a bus-themed day today, threading the vehicle through our play and activities in just about every way! A theme-day like this can be a fantastic way to fill the time with your infant.

Babies love buses; somehow that’s just a thing. Maybe it’s because they’re so big and yellow, or the excitement of seeing big kids get on and off, or just the fact that they all hear ‘Wheels on the Bus’ from a young age. But babies love buses.

Veronika and I started with the song. I love the way the verses lend themselves so naturally to motions with baby’s body. To wit, I swish Veronika from the hips down for the wipers…

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…or pedal her legs round and round…

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…or beep her nose for the horn.

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You can also show your baby a cute clip of the song, like Little Baby Bum’s version.

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Then, we spent some time with bus-themed play. We read a book about buses (Usborne’s clever Baby’s Very First Bus Book has wheels that your little one can spin!) and played with a plastic bus toy; she couldn’t get enough of scooting it around during tummy time.

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How did we cap it all off? With a ride on a real bus, of course! I selected an easy route downtown where I could park the car, take the bus only a stop or two, and make it back to the car on a little walk. You could also pick a round-trip destination on a bus if there’s a place you and your baby need to visit.

She seemed very intrigued as we waited at the bus stop. Here comes our bus, right on time!

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Then she looked around wide-eyed during our ride! As the bus bounced along, I sang ‘Wheels on the Bus’ quietly into her ear.

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In sum, a bus-y day!

Bus Frame (10)

Ok, Travis might not actually take a bus to his nursery school, but kids understand quickly the link between school buses and school. That makes this craft an adorable one to hold the Picture Day photos for kids of any age!

To start, paint 5 regular craft sticks and 3 jumbo craft sticks with yellow paint. I love watching Travis’s dexterity with painting projects increase; he now knows to hold the craft stick with the tip of a finger, in order to paint it as much as possible without getting his fingers yellow!

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We set the craft sticks aside to dry while he was – appropriately! – at school on Picture Day.

To complete the craft, glue one regular-sized stick horizontally across the tops of the other 4 regular-sized sticks; these will be the window frames of the bus. Glue the 3 jumbo sticks horizontally at the bottom, to be the body of the bus.

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Cut two circles from black craft foam for the wheels. We glued on buttons as the center of the wheels.

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From here, embellish your bus any way you’d like! A few sequins served as the headlight and pretty adornment, and a T sticker for his initial was the final touch.

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As has often been the case lately, Travis used the craft materials to play with in his own way once we were finished. He glued together additional craft sticks and sprinkled them with more sequin pieces, and was very proud of his creations.

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