The Magic School Bus on the Ocean Floor

I love that this book tells a story of the class exploring and learning about oceans while at the same time, it has little facts written on pieces of paper throughout the pictures. Each fact is written by one of the students. This is a great way to teach non-fiction without just giving out information. Another thing that is occurring besides the regular text is a lot of dialogue in little captions to show that the students are actually conversing. I also thought that it was very clever how everything that is said is made very literal through the pictures. Jake feels crabby as he is touching a crab and Mrs. Frizzle is cold because her dress has ice cubes and fans all over it. It is fun how the kids dream about going to the ocean and suddenly the teacher makes those dreams come to life by taking them on a trip there. At first, it seems like the class is just going to the beach, but then the teacher keeps driving the school bus into the ocean. The class explores everything on the ocean floor and the reader is able to learn new things through facts that each student shares. Every creature is labeled so that the child is not wondering what things are. They have a variety of adventures in the ocean and the entire time, the class is freaking out while the teacher is completely calm. When they get back, the students draw pictures and maps of what they have learned. The very last page has a multiple choice quiz with answers on the next page. This lets children know that the things that happened in the book cannot really happen in real life. This book would be great to incorporate into a science lesson and contains a lot of great information in a fun way. It does not get boring and is a great example of how fun exploring can be.