Ride The Bus

Another fun primary song for the beginning of school (or anytime!), "Ride The Bus" is at once singable and energizing. Your youngest students will enjoy the silly synthesizer on the recording that begins the piece and continues throughout. You may even find them moving their mouths in funny ways to try to imitate it! (Our kids did.) Whatever makes the performance of the song more enjoyable, by all means, let them go for it.

The verses repeat exactly the first two times through the song, which makes it easy to remember. The third time, after the D.S., the only difference is the second sentence, "Let's go back home now." If you feel you don't want your students to have to learn a different phrase, just use the same verse again for the third time.

When it comes to the rapped section, be sure to let your young rappers shout it out with enthusiasm! The message here is a good one: When riding a bus, be safe about it. Don't stand up. And if you have seat belts, buckle them.

We know many busses don't have seat belts, but many now do. Your kids may question this. What a great opportunity to discuss it with them. Why don't their busses have belts? What can they do about this? You might even want to get the school and parents involved in a "Let's Make Our Busses Safer" program in your community spearheaded by your own class. (Talk about the value of music in school - wow!)

At measure 25 in the song there is a guitar solo and movement section. On the recording, you will hear the sound effects of a bus coming to pick up students, driving them along and dropping them off. There is conversation and laughter going on, too, and your students should feel free to join in. If you would like them to include movement during this section, they can either move freely (just try to stop them!), or they can pretend to be driving the bus. In fact, after measure 33, it says on the music "Drive the bus home!" No doubt your young performers will have no difficulty pantomiming this action.