The Magic School Bus Plants Seeds: A Book About How Living Things Grow

The kids in Ms. Frizzle’s class are getting their beautiful garden photographed for a magazine, but one plant is missing - Phoebe’s favorite flower from her old school. Ms. Frizzle turns the bus into an insect and the class learns all about how flowers get fertilized and create seeds.

The Magic School Bus is great, but this is one of the weaker installments. It is really just about flower parts and fertilization, not about plants growing, but that’s probably an awkward thing to put in a book title.

There is a photographer at Mrs. Frizzle's school to take pictures of a garden they are growing. Ms. Frizzle and her class go to Phoebe’s old school and go inside one of the plants that she had planted so it will grow in their garden for the photo. It turns into a learning experience of how plants grow and how seeds are made.

This book really gets the imagination going. The characters in this book make the reader wish to have Ms. Frizzle as a teacher to go on all these exciting adventures and see how things are done or made. The style of the writing is enthusiastic and interesting; it keeps the reader wanting to know more.

Reading Level: Primary

I liked this book for two reasons. One reason I liked this book was for language. Since it was an informational book, there were a lot of vocabulary words that were relevant to the topic. Not only were the vocabulary words in this book relevant to the topic, the vocabulary words were also age appropriate. For example, since this book is targeting students in K-2nd Grade, one vocabulary word was anther, which is the part of the flower that makes pollen. I thought that anther was a very age appropriate word. Another reason I liked this book was for the plot. Most informational books do not have a plot, but this book was also somewhat of a modern fantasy book as well due to their Magic School Bus. I thought that combining the two genres is show more an effective way to get children interested in informational books. The plot of this book would keep children engaged while also learning about plants and seeds. show less

In my opinion this is a great informational and narrative text. I think the writing is engaging for the reader in a narrative form but it also provides educational information for the reader. Ms. Frizzle and her class go on a trip in their bus that turns into a bee, they land in a flower and learn about the parts of the flower. “I think we’re on this center part—the stigma”, this was said by one of the students. There is also a letter provided in the back of the book signed by Ms. Frizzle. The letter discusses what pollen is and how seeds travel from flower to flower and what parts of the flower are used in the process. I think it presents the educational information in a narrative form in the structure of a letter from Ms. show more Frizzle. I think the main idea of this book is to present the information of how plant seeds travel in a fun and imaginative way for a reader. show less

I would use this book for 3rd or 4th grades. As long as I can remember kids have always love The Magic School Bus series. While none of us will be able to shrink on a bus and experience real life things up close students can relate to the students in the series and expand their knowledge on different topics. This book at the right reading level for 3rd and 4th graders that you could have each of them independently read it or use it as an interactive read aloud and follow up with allowing the students to watch the TV series of this exact book.

Joanna Cole's "Magic School Bus" series walk the fine line between fact and fiction but give the reader a lot of information on different science topics. This book discusses the way a plant becomes pollinated and reproduces. I like these books because they peak students' interests. There is a lot happening all at once, so the reader has to follow along. I do like at the end of the book they have a note from "Ms. Frizzle" which goes into a little more depth on the most important parts of the story. My students like these books because they like the story that goes along with them. I am happy they like them so they can gather even more information on science topics!

This is a fun book to read to students in 1st or 2nd grade. The amount of text that is on each page may make it difficult for first graders to read on their own. If you have your 2nd graders read it on their own, I would go over the list of content vocabulary with them before they read it because they may struggle with some of those words if they have not already learned them in science. This is a great book to use during a science lesson talking about plants and how they grow. A popular experiment to do is have your students grow their own plant and have them record data about how their plant is growing. You can teach them about the scientific method using this activity as well. The book has good illustrations to show what is happening show more in the story and it has character thought bubbles as well that make some of the pictures a little more entertaining. You can have your students identify the main topic from this book and then have them go through the text and find supporting evidence that shows it is the main topic. This helps them to practice backing up their answers with proof. You can also talk to your students about why this book is fictional and how we could not really take a field trip to a garden and shrink down like they do. 1st grade standards: 2, 6, 7, 8 2nd grade standards: 4, 6, 7, 8 show less