Wheels on the bus lesson plan

Stand-alone lesson ESL kids lesson plan

Lesson plans for ESL kids teachers

Wheels on the bus

This is a lesson plan to use with the popular song The wheels on the bus. Students talk about [hide_on_uk]traveling[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]travelling[/hide_on_us] on a bus, sing the song, read a funny story, do a pair work drawing activity and role play being on a bus.

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Time: 40 mins – 1 hour
Objectives: Talking about [hide_on_uk]traveling[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]travelling[/hide_on_us] on the bus.
Structures: “.. go/goes …”, “All around the town”.
Target vocabulary: bus, wheels, go round, town, wipers, go swish, horn, goes beep, doors, open, shut, babies, go boo-hoo, driver, sit down.

Lesson materials

Flashcards:

bus, babies, driver

Printables:

Bus draw worksheet
Reader worksheet
Wheels on the bus song poster

Songs:

The wheels on the bus

Readers:

Bob’s bus

Additional materials:

Wheels on the bus vocab crossword
Wheels on the bus vocab word search
Bus ride worksheet

Supplies:

[hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] crayons / pencils
large blank paper (A3 size is good) – enough for each pair of students
Blu-Tack or something to stick pictures on the walls
drivers cap for role-play (if you have one – don’t worry if you don’t!)
device to play the song on

Notes:

This is a lesson plan to accompany the popular children’s song “The wheels on the bus”.

Lesson procedure:

Warm up and maintenance:

The beginning of your lesson is extremely important: this is where you set the tone of your lesson and get everyone in the right frame of mind for learning English. It is also an opportunity to check homework and review previous lessons.

Click for warm up suggestions for the start of your lessons

Print this warm up and maintenance section

These activities can be done in the following order at the start of your lesson:

1. Welcoming
Greet the students by name as they enter the classroom and gesture for them to sit down. If you have space on the floor, it’s a good idea to have a cushion for each student as this makes sitting arrangements easy to [hide_on_uk]organize[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]organise[/hide_on_us]. Try and arrange the cushions beforehand spaced out in a fan-shape around you.

2. Name tags
Before class prepare some name tags (stickers or pin-on tags) with each student’s name written in lower case letters. Sit down with your students and lay out the name tags in front of you. Pick up each tag and call out the name. Try and encourage each student to put their hand up and say “yes”. Hand over the tags and help to pin / stick on. Later on as your students recognize their written names you can have each student in turn pick out their own name tag.

3. Greetings
Use a glove puppet (such as a Sesame Street puppet) to greet the students. Keep him in a cloth bag. Bring out the bag, open it enough to see in and shout into the bag the puppet’s name (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Then move your ear to the opening to listen – nothing. Go to each student and encourage them to shout the puppet’s name into the bag – each time nothing happens. Finally, get all the students together to shout the name at the same time. This time the puppet wakes up and jumps out of the bag! The puppet then chats to each student:

Puppet (teacher): Hello, What’s your name?
Student Hello. My name is….
Puppet: Goodbye / See you!
Student: Goodbye / See you!

As your students learn more phrases, you can include them in the conversation, such as “How old are you? Do you like …?, Can you …?, etc.

Finally, the puppet goes back into the bag and back to sleep.

4. Sing the “Hello song” or a review song
Sit in a circle and sing along to the song. Encourage students to clap along or pat their laps in time with the music. The Hello song is a good song to start the lesson with, especially as it has an accompanying Goodbye song to sing at the end of the lesson.

Lyrics for the “Hello song”

Hello, hello, Hello, hello,
How are you? How are you?
I’m fine, thank you, I’m fine, thank you,
We’re ok, We’re ok.

Lyrics for “The Hello Song”

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
Hello, hello,
How are you today?

I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Hello, hello,
How are you today?
I’m fine, thank you,
And how about you?

Gestures for the “Hello song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Hello, hello” parts.
Gesture to others as you sing, “How are you today?”
Point to yourself as you sing, “I’m fine, thank you”
Hand gesture towards another student as you sing, “And how about you?”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_us]

5. Read a classroom reader again
As you progress through the lessons you will start to build up a catalog of classroom readers. Kids love going back to old stories and reading through them again. Invite a student to pick a classroom reader and read through it as a class. Make the story as interactive as possible by asking questions (e.g. what [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] there are, the names of different objects, etc.) and getting students to speculate what is going to happen next in the story.

6. Homework check
Check each student’s homework set in the last lesson. Ask each student some questions about their homework worksheet (e.g. “what [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] is it?”), give lots of praise, and then put some kind of mark on the homework sheet (e.g. a sticker, a stamp or draw a smiley face). Finally, tell your students to put their homework back into their bags.

7. Do “Exercise routine” activity
Say the following and have your students follow your lead: “Stand up (teacher stands and so does everyone else), “Hands up / hands down” (x 3-5), “Jump” (x3-5), “Run! / Stop!” (x3-5), “Turn around! / Stop!” (x3-5), finally “Sit down”.

Throughout the course you can introduce other commands, such as “Hop”, “Star Jump”, “Wiggle”, “Crouch” and so on.

Extra activity: Once your students have got to know these exercises you can play “Teacher says” using these actions.

How to play … Teacher says:

This is basically the game ‘Simon says’ but using the words “Teacher says” instead. The teacher tells the students to do an action and they do as asked (e.g. “Teacher says … jump 3 times”). The teacher keeps on giving instructions with different actions using “Teacher says …”. At some point the teacher gives a command without using the phrase “Teacher says” (e.g. “Hop 5 times”) and the students must not do that action – they have to stay still. Any students that do the action have to sit out for the rest of the game. The last student standing is the winner.

8. Name writing practice
If your students cannot write their names yet, this is a great activity. For really young ones, don’t worry if their effort is a scrawly mess – always encourage and praise.

You will need to prepare a writing sheet for each student before class with their name written in dots for them to practice tracing their names (also prepare one for yourself so you can model the task). You can either make these yourself (hand draw the dots for each name) or use a font typed into a Word document – we like to use the “National First Font Dotted” font (you can download it for free here: http://www.fontspace.com/roger-white/national-first-font-dotted).

Prepare the sheets something like this:

Tip:

Make a few extra copies of each student’s name writing sheet so you can use them in future lesson or for homework.

When everyone has finished writing their names, get each student to hold up their sheet so you and everyone can see. Give lots of praise to each student.

9. Review past lessons
Reviewing past lessons is very important – students need constant practice of new vocab, structures, songs, games and so on. Always review parts of your last lesson as well as some parts from other previous lessons. You can spend 5-10 minutes reviewing – it’s fine to recycle games and activities from your past lessons to review as kids enjoy playing familiar games (although be careful not to play a game to death!).

Note: You can also include review activities in the main body of your lesson. Kids can have short attention spans so it’s good to be able to pull out lots of activities during different stages of the lesson.

Other ideas to include in your warm up:

What’s in the bag?
This is a great activity to do at the beginning of your lessons. Fill a large cloth bag with items from your previous lessons (e.g. plastic fruit, animals, etc.). You can also throw in a few other objects (e.g. a pencil, a plastic bottle, a plastic cup – anything lying around (and safe!)). Show the bag to your students and shake it to rattle the objects inside. Pull out different objects, teach/elicit their names, have students hold and pass the objects around. You can even have students pull objects out of the bag. Pull out 1 or 2 objects per student. Finally, place the objects around the classroom and have each student retrieve each object as you call out its name and put it back in the bag.

Knock-knock
This can be used at the beginning of each class. Teach the students to knock on the door before entering the classroom. There are 2 variations for the next step:

When the student knocks, teacher says, “Who’s there?”. The student replies, “It’s (Koji)” and then the teacher says, “Come in (Koji)”.
When the student knocks the teacher must guess who it is, “Is that (Koji)?”. The student replies yes or no – if no, the teacher continues guessing. Having your students develop their own knocking styles makes this even more fun.

Spin the bottle
Sit students in a circle with a bottle in the middle. Teacher spins the bottle. When it stops spinning the student it is pointing at has to answer a question. If the answer is correct then that student can spin the bottle. For example, How are you? What’s your name? What is this? (show an object or flashcard) Do you like _?, etc.

Talk about the weather (do after you have taught the weather lesson plan).

Prepare a weather board. Before the first class prepare a piece of cardboard and cover it with felt – you are going to pin this to the wall. If you can, try and get blue felt (to represent the sky). Write at the top in large letters, “How’s the weather today?”. Below the write “Today it’s”. Cut out weather pictures (such as our weather flashcards) and stick some velcro on the back. Arrange the weather pictures around the edge of the board and then put the board on the wall of your classroom. You can now use this weather board at the beginning of every lesson.
Sing “The weather song”. Sing the song together doing all of the gestures.
Look outside. Get everyone to look outside by saying, “How’s the weather? Look outside”. Elicit the weather for that day.
Put the weather pictures on the weather board. Invite some students to come up and put the weather pictures on the board. Make sure these students say the word as they put the card on the board.

New learning and practice:

1. Introduce the vocab in the song with a drawing exercise
For this lesson you are going to use your artistic drawing skills.

Start by drawing a large picture of a bus on the board – make it as large as you can, filling the whole board. Elicit / teach / chorus the word “bus”.
Next, shade in the wheels and again elicit / teach / chorus the word “wheels”. Now teach the action phrase “go round and round” and get everybody making round and round movements with their arms as you say, “The wheels on the bus go round and round”.

Draw a large picture of a bus on the board

Now draw wipers onto the picture and teach “wipers” and “swish” and get everyone to do the swishing action with their arms.
Then draw a steering wheel (through the window) and motion driving and honking the horn. Teach and practice “horn” and “beep”.
Draw the doors on the bus and teach “doors”, “open and shut” and practice do opening and shutting actions with your arms.
Now for the tough bit – drawing babies on the bus! Draw the windows and draw babies looking out. You can show flashcard pictures if your drawing is not up to scratch! Teach and practice “babies”, “boo-hoo”.
Finally, draw the driver sitting on the bus holding the steering wheel. Teach / practice “driver”, “Please sit down”. When teaching “Please sit down” get everyone standing up and have fun telling everyone to sit down and stand up, so they all get the meaning.

2. Play “I say, you do”
Now to practice the vocabulary. Get everyone to stand up facing the teacher. Start by saying a random sentence from the song (e.g. “The doors on the bus go open and shut”) and get everyone to do the action. At first go slowly, saying different sentences and having everyone do the action from the gestures section below. Then go faster and faster until it is impossible to keep up.

3. Sing “The wheels on the bus” song
First play the song and get everyone to follow you with the actions. Then play the song again and encourage everyone to sing along.

Lyrics for “The wheels on the bus”

Verse 1:
The wheels on the bus
Go round and round
Round and round
Round and round.
The wheels on the bus
Go round and round
All around the town.

Verse 2:
The wipers on the bus
Go swish, swish, swish
Swish, swish, swish
Swish, swish, swish.
The wipers on the bus
Go swish, swish, swish
All around the town.

Verse 3:
The horn on the bus
Goes beep, beep, beep
Beep, beep, beep
Beep, beep, beep.
The horn on the bus
Goes beep, beep, beep
All around the town.

Verse 4:
The doors on the bus
Go open and shut
Open and shut
Open and shut.
The doors on the bus
Go open and shut
All around the town.

Verse 5:
The babies on the bus
Go “Boo-hoo-hoo!
Boo-hoo-hoo!
Boo-hoo-hoo!”
The babies on the bus
Go “Boo-hoo-hoo!”
All around the town.

Verse 6:
The driver of the bus
Says “Please sit down!
Please sit down!
Please sit down!”
The driver of the bus
Says “Please sit down!”
All around the town.

Verse 7:
The wheels on the bus
Go round and round
Round and round
Round and round.
The wheels on the bus
Go round and round
All around the town.

Gestures for “The wheels on the bus”

The actions of the song are really easy and mimic what is happening in the song.

For verse 1, whirl your arms around in the air for “The wheels on the bus go round and round …” part.
For verse 2, swish your arms lefts and right for “The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish …” part.
For verse 3, beep an imaginary horn for “The horn on the bus goes beep, beep, beep …” part.
For verse 4, swish your arms back and forth for “The doors on the bus go open and shut …” part.
For verse 5, put your fists to your eyes and mimic crying for “The babies on the bus go boo-hoo-hoo …” part.
For verse 6, look angry and wave your finger for “The driver on the bus says “Please sit down!”” part.
Verse 7 is the same as verse 1

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
 [/hide_on_uk]

[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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4. Read classroom reader “Bob’s bus”
This reader follows on perfectly from The wheels on the bus song and helps to reinforce the new vocabulary with a fun story. Before class, download and print off the reader “Bob’s bus”. As you go through each page, point to the different features and elicit what they are, for example:

Teacher: (on page 3) Look, what are these? (pointing at the wheels)
Students: Wheels!
Teacher: Yes, that’s right. And the wheels go …?
Students: Round and round! (everyone does the gesture from the song)
Teacher: Yes, very good! (reading from page 3) “Look at the wheels go round and round”.
Teacher: (reading from page 4) “Oh no, it’s raining!”. Oh but that’s ok because … what are these? (pointing at the wipers)
Students: Wipers!
Teacher: Yes, good job! And the wipers go …?
Students: Swish, swish! (everyone does the gesture from the song)
Teacher: Yes, very good! (reading from page 4) “The wipers go swish, swish”.
etc.

Continue through the story, eliciting the key vocabulary. Get the students really involved in the story by asking lots of questions (e.g. about the [hide_on_uk]colors[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colours[/hide_on_us] of the uniform, bus and people’s clothes, the clothing vocabulary for the driver’s uniform, etc.).

After reading the story, give out a reader worksheet to each student and read through the story one more time (without stopping for questions, etc.) as students number the pictures in the order of the story. Then go through the answers as a class.

Alternatively, watch our video version of the reader (Internet connection required).

5. Draw the bus pair work activity
Put everyone in pairs and give them a large piece of plain paper (A3 size is good). Each pair will have to cooperate to draw the same picture as yours on the board. Give the first instruction, “Everybody draw a bus” and encourage each pair to work together to draw the outline of the bus. Then give the next instruction “Now draw the wipers”. As they are doing this, ask random students what wipers do (“swish- swish-swish”). Keep going until all the pictures are complete and [hide_on_uk]colored[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]coloured[/hide_on_us] in.

Finally, pin all the pictures to the walls and have each pairs stand in front of their pictures. Play the song one more time, and have the students touch the parts of the picture as it is mentioned in the song (e.g. they touch the wipers on the line “The wipers on the bus go swish, swish, swish”).

6. Do a “Take the bus” role-play
This is the show stopper which your students will love. Arrange all the chairs so that they are facing forwards in rows, just like on a bus. The teacher can be the driver (if you can find a driver’s cap to wear, all the better!). Get everyone to line up outside the bus (at the bus stop) and ‘drive’ the bus to the bus stop. Everyone can enter the bus, pay for their ticket (prepare tickets before class and ever use toy money) and then sit down. Then start driving the bus and as you go, shout out, “lean left!” and “lean right” as you go around corners and get everyone to lean with you. Do lots of other fun things, such as:

beep the horn (everyone does together)
stand up and sit down to help go up and down hills (Don’t forget to say, “Please sit down!”)
stop!!! (everyone lurches forward)
speed up!!! (everyone is pushed back in their seats)
jump up and down (when the bus gets stuck in mud)

At the end, pull up to the stop and shout, “Everybody, get off the bus!” You can even invite other students to take on the role of bus driver.

Wrap up:

Assign homework: “Bus draw” worksheet

Click for wrap up suggestions for the end of your lessons

Print this wrap up section

1. Assign homework
Each week give out a homework worksheet for your students to take home. Hold up the homework worksheet and model how to do it. Give out the worksheets and say, “Put your homework in your bags” and help them to do so – this is important as they will probably want to start [hide_on_uk]coloring[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colouring[/hide_on_us] them right away.

Note:

If possible, encourage the parents to help out as much as possible with their child’s homework – it is a great way to have your students practice the target language outside of class.

2. Say goodbye to glove puppet
Take out the bag again and get everyone to wake up the glove puppet by shouting its name into the bag (e.g. “Cookie Monster!”). Bring out the puppet and go through the same routine – go to each student and say hello, ask their name and the say goodbye / see you. Then put the puppet back in the bag (back to sleep).

3. Sing the “Goodbye song”
The “Goodbye song” is a great way to sign off the class. Sit together in a circle and sing and clap along. You can also use a different song, especially if your students love a particular song.

Lyrics for the “Goodbye song”

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.

It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Goodbye, goodbye,
See you again.
It’s time to go,
See you next time.

Gestures for the “Goodbye song”

These are quite straight forward. First time you play the song do the gestures and encourage everyone to do them with you.

Wave as you sing the “Goodbye, goodbye” parts.
Hold your hand above your eyes (as you would when you are looking into the distance and keeping the sun out of your eyes) and look at another student as you sing, “See you again”.
Tap watch (or imaginary watch) and then point to the door as you sing, “It’s time to go”.
Point towards another student as you sing, “See you next time”.

[hide_on_uk]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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[hide_on_us]Short sample (members get full-length song):
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4. Do “Quick check” and say goodbye
Time to leave the class. Make sure everything is put away and the students have gathered their belongings. Have them line up at the door and place yourself between the door and the students. For each student check one new word or phrase, for example:

hold up an object or flashcard (such as a [hide_on_uk]color[/hide_on_uk][hide_on_us]colour[/hide_on_us] or fruit) and ask, “What’s this?”
say an action for the student to do (e.g. “Roar like a lion”, “Jump 5 times”, etc.)
ask a question from the lesson (e.g. “How old are you?”, “Do you like bananas?”, “Can you play chess?”, etc.).
for very young students you can hold up one of the worksheets you did in the lesson and ask them to touch an object (e.g. “Touch the melon”).

When they give you the correct answer say goodbye and let them leave. If their answer is wrong, have them go back to the end of the line – they will have to try again once they reach the front!