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Magic School Bus Science Readers
The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving
Ms. Frizzle's class is making a meal just like the Pilgrims ate at the first Thanksgiving. That means no pumpkin pie. Can it be true? The class is determined to find out. Hop on the Magic School Bus and be Ms. Frizzle's guest at the first Thanksgiving.
32 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2006
1 person is currently reading
119 people want to read
About the author
Joanna Cole
489 books205 followersJoanna Cole, who also wrote under the pseudonym B. J. Barnet, was an author of children’s books who teaches science.
She is most famous as the author of The Magic School Bus series of children's books. Joanna Cole wrote over 250 books ranging from her first book Cockroach to her famous series Magic School Bus.
Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby East Orange. She loved science as a child, and had a teacher she says was a little like Ms. Frizzle. She attended the University of Massachusetts and Indiana University before graduating from the City College of New York with a B.A. in psychology. After some graduate education courses, she spent a year as a librarian in a Brooklyn elementary school. Cole subsequently became a letters correspondent at Newsweek, and then a senior editor for Doubleday Books for Young Readers.
She is most famous as the author of The Magic School Bus series of children's books. Joanna Cole wrote over 250 books ranging from her first book Cockroach to her famous series Magic School Bus.
Cole was born in Newark, New Jersey, and grew up in nearby East Orange. She loved science as a child, and had a teacher she says was a little like Ms. Frizzle. She attended the University of Massachusetts and Indiana University before graduating from the City College of New York with a B.A. in psychology. After some graduate education courses, she spent a year as a librarian in a Brooklyn elementary school. Cole subsequently became a letters correspondent at Newsweek, and then a senior editor for Doubleday Books for Young Readers.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
August 1, 2019
this 1 was ok but I think the kid wanted more.science from the school bus...also...like a lot of older Thanksgiving books...this 1 might not hold up as well for some folk.
August 19, 2020
We love the magic school bus series of books, they are very educational!
September 15, 2013
The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving is a Level 2 Scholastic Reader, featuring "vocabulary and sentence length for beginning readers". It's based on Joanna's Cole's original Magic School Bus book series and stars the characters of the Magic School Bus television show in a trip to the "first Thanksgiving".
As far as Thanksgiving books go, there are three main categories. The first category tells the story of a modern U.S. Thanksgiving and mostly or completely ignores the origins of the holiday. The second tells the mythical version of the "first" Thanksgiving that elementary school students throughout the United States "reenact" every year. The third kind attempts to teach children the truth behind the nonsense. I'm happy to say that The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving is an example of the third case.
In the book, Ms. Frizzle is teaching her class about the Thanksgiving holiday; on her blackboard, she has written a menu of what the English emigrants and Wampanoag may actually have eaten at the celebration that eventually came to be referred to as "the first Thanksgiving". Upon seeing this menu, the students insist that pumpkin pie should be listed--they have it every year!--but Dorothy Ann's book says otherwise. To get to the bottom of it, Ms. Frizzle ushers her class into the bus for a field trip through time.
On their trip, the class gets to witness the Mayflower's journey to and arrival in North America and the first winter the emigrants endured in their new home (complete with a mention of the many deaths that occurred during this period). Then the story gets into the "Thanksgiving" itself, explaining Tisquantum /Squanto's role in the story (mention is made of his being kidnapped and taken to England, but not of his enslavement; presumably the subject was considered a tad too mature for a book aimed at toddlers), the duties the Europeans performed during the harvest season, and the recreation that may have been indulged in during the three-celebration. Notably, the book also points out that there were more Native Americans than Europeans at the celebration, that the celebration was not called a "Thanksgiving", and that Thanksgiving was not a national holiday until 1863; it also alludes to the fact that the Wampanoag people's arrival at the celebration was a surprise and not the result of a previously extended invitation.
All in all, I'd say The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving is a wonderful way to teach children about the reality (to the best of modern historians' knowledge) of the "first Thanksgiving", and I highly recommend it to those children interested in learning about the background of the holiday--especially those children whose schools perpetuate the mythical version of the historical event.
As far as Thanksgiving books go, there are three main categories. The first category tells the story of a modern U.S. Thanksgiving and mostly or completely ignores the origins of the holiday. The second tells the mythical version of the "first" Thanksgiving that elementary school students throughout the United States "reenact" every year. The third kind attempts to teach children the truth behind the nonsense. I'm happy to say that The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving is an example of the third case.
In the book, Ms. Frizzle is teaching her class about the Thanksgiving holiday; on her blackboard, she has written a menu of what the English emigrants and Wampanoag may actually have eaten at the celebration that eventually came to be referred to as "the first Thanksgiving". Upon seeing this menu, the students insist that pumpkin pie should be listed--they have it every year!--but Dorothy Ann's book says otherwise. To get to the bottom of it, Ms. Frizzle ushers her class into the bus for a field trip through time.
On their trip, the class gets to witness the Mayflower's journey to and arrival in North America and the first winter the emigrants endured in their new home (complete with a mention of the many deaths that occurred during this period). Then the story gets into the "Thanksgiving" itself, explaining Tisquantum /Squanto's role in the story (mention is made of his being kidnapped and taken to England, but not of his enslavement; presumably the subject was considered a tad too mature for a book aimed at toddlers), the duties the Europeans performed during the harvest season, and the recreation that may have been indulged in during the three-celebration. Notably, the book also points out that there were more Native Americans than Europeans at the celebration, that the celebration was not called a "Thanksgiving", and that Thanksgiving was not a national holiday until 1863; it also alludes to the fact that the Wampanoag people's arrival at the celebration was a surprise and not the result of a previously extended invitation.
All in all, I'd say The Magic School Bus at the First Thanksgiving is a wonderful way to teach children about the reality (to the best of modern historians' knowledge) of the "first Thanksgiving", and I highly recommend it to those children interested in learning about the background of the holiday--especially those children whose schools perpetuate the mythical version of the historical event.
November 28, 2011
I read this book to my k-1 class for practicum and they loved it. The Magic School Bus is a very popular series and in this book they go to the very first Thanksgiving. They find out all of the foods that they ate at the first dinner. The kids were all surprised that they did not serve pumpkin pie. All of the illustrations in this book are colorful and match the text well. I believe that these Magic School Bus books can be a bit distracting at times though because when reading it to children you have to read all the captions too and it can get confusing. A good idea for a lesson to go along with this book would be to discuss with the students what they eat at Thanksgiving dinner and compare the foods that we eat now to what they used to eat back then. This book is great for kids of all ages.
July 26, 2016
I love the Magic School Bus books. Legomeister loved these for years, and now Little Miss is starting to request them.
The Scholastic Readers are nice for bedtime stories because they're shorter, and of course, they're great for early readers. They're more difficult than some easy readers, a little longer with more challenging words. The writing feels choppy; that's a side effect of simplifying it. But I think they do a good job of keeping the story fun and informative. They definitely hold the interest of my Magic School Bus Fans.
It just retells the First Thanksgiving story. With a school-bus-house.
The Scholastic Readers are nice for bedtime stories because they're shorter, and of course, they're great for early readers. They're more difficult than some easy readers, a little longer with more challenging words. The writing feels choppy; that's a side effect of simplifying it. But I think they do a good job of keeping the story fun and informative. They definitely hold the interest of my Magic School Bus Fans.
It just retells the First Thanksgiving story. With a school-bus-house.
March 11, 2016
My issues with this book are the same as my problems with the standard canonical pedagogy of the first Thanksgiving, which this book replicates word for word.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews