Customer Reviews

The Magic School Bus - Human Body

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I homeschool (unschool) my son, and the Magic School Bus series is GREAT for teaching kids science. We have 4 DVD sets and a few VHS's.

If you're unfamiliar with the premise, the central characters are Ms. Frizzle (a teacher), her class, Liz the lizard and the Bus. Ms. Frizzle takes her class on crazy field trips, where Bus--and sometimes the kids!--experience a transformation so they can get closer to the action. (For example, become a bee or turning into water droplets.)

One of our most recent purchases was The Human Body and it's excellent as always. These three episodes cover various aspects of the human body:

*For Lunch - The digestive system
*Inside Ralphie - The circulatory system
*Flexes Its Muscles - Bones, Muscles and Joints

There is also a peek inside Map of the Human Body for kids to explore.

This CD runs about 80 minutes and is supposedly geared towards children 3-8. Personally, I think the age-appropriate range is more like 6-10 because of the complex concepts introduced.

However, if younger kids enjoy it--more power to them! It certainly can't hurt to introduce science to younger kids if the Magic School Bus holds their interest.

My 8-year old son really enjoys the series now (he didn't get into it when he was younger), so I use the Magic School Bus series to supplement our learning/experimenting with science principles. And, my son seems to love The Human Body; in fact, he's watching it right now!

Beware - these are NOT new episodes, just new to DVD. The shows included are "For Lunch", "Inside Ralphie", and "Flexes Its Muscles". The episodes are excellent, as ever. And you can select English, French, or Spanish.

This DVD contains several of my favorites including For Lunch and Inside Ralphie. The trips through the human body are great for small children. I'm less thrilled with the Robot Ralphie episode... they always do the segment at the end that clarifies things that had to be simplified to do the show. In general, this works well. However, the Robot Ralphie episode dives into the skeleton, muscles/tendons, but ignores the brain's role in motion. Normally, I can buy into the things they omit for the sake of finishing the lesson, but this one was way too big of an omission for me, and I spent quite a while with my 4yr old talking about how a toaster is not a suitable "brain" for a robot, but a computer could be. Putting the brain as a "footnote" in the end segment didn't seem appropriate to me.

Overall though, a pleasure to watch as usual. The first two episodes more than make up for my annoyance with the third. The kids love them.

All the magic school bus movies are great and so much information. Both my 3 year old boy and my 7 year old girl love them and so do I.
For everyone!!

My kids, aged 6 and 4, love this series. This is another DVD that they enjoy. They definitely learn as they watch which is an added bonus.

So far one of the best, worth every penny. My four year old loved it and learned a lot with this DVD

First-rate educational entertainment for the whole family.

My five year old grandson wants to be a doctor when he grows up. He loves watching show about the body. This is perfect for his age group

This was a great buy...you would never have known that it was second hand...arrived in Australia in just under 3 weeks...Thank u :)

The magic school bus is THE BEST! Everyone from toddlers to high schoolers love it. Its a fun cartoon that kids can't get enough of AND its educational too. All based on real science principles. AWESOME visualization of the digestive system (my favorite), muscles/bones, and germs/immune system.