School Bus Coloring Page
About This Coloring Page
A school bus is the first piece of public infrastructure most children have an opinion about. It arrives at a particular place at a particular time, it is the same one every day, and it takes people away and brings them back. For a three-year-old watching an older sibling get on, that is an enormous and slightly unnerving idea, and drawing tends to be how a child of that age works an idea over.
The page is built out of repeated shapes, which is the useful part. A long row of windows, a row of wheels, a row of fence-height railings: each is the same form repeated at the same interval, and a child colouring along a row is practising the left-to-right sweep that reading and writing both depend on, without being asked to read or write anything.
It is also a page that answers questions. Where does the door go, why is there a sign, who sits at the front. A child who has been nervous about a bus is usually less nervous after they have coloured one, for the same reason a child who has been shown a hospital in a picture book copes better on the day.
Skills Practiced
How to Use This Coloring Page
- Count the windows out loud. There is a fixed number of them and they are in a straight line, which makes this the easiest honest counting practice on the page.
- Colour one row at a time, left to right. Windows, then wheels. The habit of sweeping left to right across a page is worth more than any single letter.
- Ask who is sitting in each window. Naming an imaginary passenger per window turns a vehicle into a story, and children colour stories for longer than they colour objects.