Why Are School Buses Yellow? Lesson Plan

1. Preview the Issue

Provide students with some background on how things can change over time.

Build background knowledge (10 min.)

Watch our video "What Changes Over Time?” After children have finished watching the video, discuss the following question:

What is something that is different today than it was long ago?

2. Read the issue.

Set a purpose for reading (5 min.)

Pass out the issue, and discuss the cover. Do students have any predictions for the reason school buses are yellow?
Next, read the As You Read prompt on page 2: “Think about how school buses have changed over time.” Encourage children to think about this prompt as they read.

Read together (20 min.)

Pass out the Read and Think printable. Use it to check comprehension as you read the issue together, pausing to ask the questions.

Preview vocabulary (3 min.)

Next, play the online vocabulary slideshow. This issue’s featured word is invention.

Assessment: Reading Quiz

Pass out the Reading Quiz to review key concepts from the issue and assess students’ proficiency on key nonfiction reading skills.

Shook’s Books

This is the Way We Go to School by Edith Baer (20 min.)

This rhyming book features the many ways children across the U.S. and around the world get to school. To further extend the learning, have students research countries and create a class book featuring a way kids in each one get to school!

3. Play the online game.

Students can practice encoding CVC and CVCe words with the “Make School Bus Words” game.

4. Focus on ELA Skills

You can use our printable worksheets to focus on important ELA skills. Here’s how.

ELA Focus: Vocabulary (15 min.)

Use the Word Work printable to deepen students’ understanding of the word invention.

Editor’s Pick: Sequencing (15 min.)

Students will organize what they have learned about how school buses have changed over time with the School Bus Sequencing skill sheet.

ELA Focus: Writing (15 min.)

The School Bus of the Future! skill sheet provides scaffolding for students to design a new way to get to school.

From the Archive

Here are two past issues you can use to extend your lesson on how things can change over time:

“School Long Ago,” September 2019. Students will compare and contrast school 100 years ago with school today.
“Time to Climb!,” September 2023. This issue analyzes how playgrounds have changed over time.

Differentiation Station

You can find a higher-Lexile-level and a lower-Lexile-level version of the article online here:

Higher-Lexile level: 530L
Lower-Lexile level: 430L