The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs

Ms. Frizzle takes her students on a wild journey into the past, to study the age of dinosaurs, and search for Maiasaura nests. The adventure begins when she receives an invitation from her friend Jeff, a paleontologist, to take her class and visit his archaeological site. They hop in her magical school bus, and dash off on a field trip. The students spend some time at the dig site and learn about the tools and trade of archaeology. When Ms. Frizzle learns that Jeff can't find the dinosaur nests he is seeking, though, the teacher decides the students need to take a different trip. This time, the school bus is transformed into a time machine, and the class whizzes back in time, taking brief stops in the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous show more periods. They find the Maiasaura dinosaurs along with many others, and also learn about prehistoric lizards and plant life. Back in present time, Ms. Frizzle helpfully directs her friend to the correct location of the Maiasaura nests, and the class drives back to school just in time for Visitors Day. All of the children's relatives are impressed with the detail and verisimilitude in their various demonstrations of dinosaur life.

The Magic School Bus series always mingles the fantasy of Ms Frizzle and her zany adventures with scientific facts and discoveries. I find it a delightful series that makes learning about science fun. Parents and teachers can discriminate with readers the details that are fact or fantasy, while teaching them about dinosaurs. In this book, many facts about different periods of prehistoric times are delivered with humor, educating while entertaining. The book is filled with text, dialogue bubbles, and multiple sidebars of interesting facts. The illustrations are likewise crammed with details, featuring lots of characters and animals, and numerous charts and mini illustrations in the sidebars. When I was a girl, I loved immersing myself in detailed children's books where you could always find something new, and this book is a treasure trove of finely detailed writing and illustrating. I definitely appreciate this book, and others in the series, as a fun approach to science. show less

I read this with my 5-year-old, and we both really enjoyed it. It's fun and silly (Ms. Frizzle is a bizarre but fun teacher), and we both learned a lot while having fun. I especially liked all the "notes" - each page contains a several sentence long "report" written by Ms. Frizzle's students that illustrate, explain or expand on what is happening on that page.

*** Caution - the students (and reader) witness an Apatosaurus eating a Stegosaurus. It is nicely explained that without hunting, meat-eating dinosaurs (and present-day carnivores) would die, intimating that it's all part of life. It *is* quite bloody, but after my daughter "eeewwwww"-ed, I simply covered the bloodier bits up to calm her while I finished reading that page to her. show more Later, I heard her telling her dad, "come see this DISGUSTING picture, Daddy!" - so I'm not too worried! show less

I used my sons own library for the science picture book week. He is obsessed with anything science. We took him to the booksale, gave him $10 and he came back with a kid encyclopedia set. (He’s 9) This is one of his favorite books . We’re big fans of the magic school bus in general. I had him read this book to me. Ms frizzle and her students go back and time and become paleontologist themselves and set off to discover the relationship between birds and dinosaurs. The hollowness of bones, the bone layout itself, fossils found with feathers are just a few of the examples they find. Then dorthy Ann writes a research paper on it (classic D.A. move). It’s a good book that definitely peaks interest in kids.

I liked this book because of the author's ability to introduce facts about the topic. I did not like that there was a mass of information on each page. The author did a great job combining an entertaining story with facts on each page that coincide with the story. There are great charts and actual size drawings in the book that give the reader a wonderful visual representation of the facts. I did however feel that there was too much information on each page. When turning to a new page, I found myself unsure of what to read first. The overall message of this book is to give the reader background knowledge on dinosaurs and how they lived.

I had mixed feelings about this book after I read. Some aspects I liked about the book were the use of informative diagrams and facts that were listed throughout the book. This helped to inform the reader of the backgrounds of many dinosaurs. In addition, I also enjoyed how the text stood out from the other information on the pages. For instance during their travels to the Late Jurassic Period, the page highlighted the text with a white portion of background. Located around the page were a time line showing where they were in relation to present day, and a map of the world as it looked during that time period. Although these were some aspects I enjoyed, there were also parts I did not enjoy. I felt that to a reader it seemed to be a bit show more distracting when the page was covered with speech bubbles. This made me want to read the information on the sheets of paper and in the bubbles before reading the actual text. To me this book may be a bit too stimulating for some readers as well. Due to the high frequency of information bubbles and examples of what is talked about, the reader can easily become overwhelmed by how much there is to know about a particular time period. This informative text takes a magical spin on science which makes it enjoyable to read. Overall this book was meant to inform the reader of the many animals and plants that are now fossils. show less

I believe this book would be appropriate for an upper elementary classroom. I think that the story has a lot of information on each page with a few difficult words, which would be more reasonable to use in an upper elementary classroom. This book touches on the many aspects of pre-historic life and paleontology, such as fossils, dinosaurs, and the different time periods. After reading this book, students could "adopt" one of the dinosaurs discussed in class, and create a biography or Facebook page, showcasing the unique and important characteristics of each dinosaur. The students could present their finished products to the class, and then hang them up around the classroom to use as a reference throughout the unit.

Ms. Frizzle takes her students on a wild journey into the past, to study the age of dinosaurs, and search for Maiasaura nests. The adventure begins when she receives an invitation from her friend Jeff, a paleontologist, to take her class and visit his archaeological site. They hop in her magical school bus, and dash off on a field trip. The students spend some time at the dig site and learn about the tools and trade of archaeology. When Ms. Frizzle learns that Jeff can't find the dinosaur nests he is seeking, though, the teacher decides the students need to take a different trip. This time, the school bus is transformed into a time machine, and the class whizzes back in time, taking brief stops in the Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous show more periods. They find the Maiasaura dinosaurs along with many others, and also learn about prehistoric lizards and plant life. Back in present time, Ms. Frizzle helpfully directs her friend to the correct location of the Maiasaura nests, and the class drives back to school just in time for Visitors Day. All of the children's relatives are impressed with the detail and verisimilitude in their various demonstrations of dinosaur life. show less