The Wheels on the Bus

Annie Kubler (illus)
Child’s Play
Age 0-3

This is a brightly illustrated picture book version of the well known children’s song ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. The strong rhythm and repetition make it a great song for joining in, babies and young children will love adding actions as well. The pictures are highly detailed with lots to talk about.

Share the story

Sing the Song
This is a book where the words need to be sung  as you turn the pages together. It doesn’t matter if you’re not a great singer, children will love hearing your voice as you sing the tune.

Join in
Babies and young children will enjoy joining in with the words of the song as you share the book again (and again!) and will love doing actions for the wheels going round and the wipers going ‘swish’. You can sing the song without the book as well, in the bath, getting dressed or when you are out and about.

Talk about the book
Talk about all the people on the bus on each page and what they are doing.
You could make this into a game, asking your child to find someone who is reading or having a drink for example.Why are some people running? Whose party are they going to?

You could count the people  on the bus or at the party together. 

Watch a video
Watch an animation of Wheels on the Bus

From HooplaKidz

Things to make and do

Add verses to the song
There are lots of versions of this song, you may know other words and enjoy teaching those to your child, or perhaps you could make up new verses together.

Story play
Make a space on the floor and mark out a road way. Your child could make bus stops out of building blocks and line up small figures in queues. Children can take a toy bus or other vehicle along the route and pick up passengers on the way. See the back cover for a version of this.

Go bus spotting
When you are out together look for buses and point them out to your child, maybe you could go on a bus trip as well.

Draw a picture
Older toddlers could draw a bus full of people on a large sheet of paper with crayons. They might like to draw themselves on the bus too.

Find out more

Print off the words of the song here

Find more books illustrated by Annie Kubler here