Greatest Wheels on the Bus Melody intended for Children in order to play to understand Language.

Total travel time and energy to and from Wheels on the bus song for baby: about several hours.



"The first day I traveled to school, I was like, do I genuinely wish to do this? " Freeman, 18, said. But the ride quickly became routine, and now Freeman doesn't hesitate to shoot down the notion of trading the two-hour visit to the science and technology magnet school to the 10 minutes it would take him to get at his local high school.

It was previously that students with the longest bus rides were people that have rural addresses. Today, however, increasingly more of the longest school bus commutes belong to suburban students, willing to put in the time to be able to attend a prestigious magnet institution.

"Oh, I think it's worthwhile, " said Freeman, a older at Thomas Jefferson. "I'm very happy at this school. It's one of those opportunities that comes to maybe a lucky few students. "

Sometimes the length of the trips that students are going to endure even surprises adults.

"I'll inform you when I felt it -- on that rare occasion when children miss the bus, and I'm taking them home. I'm imagining, 'Wow, "' said Montgomery Blair High school graduation Principal Phillip Gainous. Long commutes have become routine at the Silver Spring secondary school, one of the largest inside Montgomery and home to magnet programs in communications and research that lure students from along the county.



School officials across the region strain to keep regular, in-boundary school bus rides under one hour. But that has no keeping on magnet school commutes, which often easily stretch longer. Students learn how to make the best of the item: One recent morning, a group of Thomas Jefferson freshmen huddled around a little light clamped to a math textbook to study for a test. Another college student strummed a guitar. Still others dozed to music off their portable CD players.

Montgomery Blair once offered a buddy program that gave far-flung students safe places to stay if the roads were tied up with bad weather or mishaps. But the program died from lack of use, Gainous mentioned. "We don't do that any more, because the kids are accustomed to traveling or waiting in the school, " he said. "They only sleep or do their preparation. "

Grace Chung, a 15-year-old Thomas Jefferson sophomore, tries to squeeze in certain study time on the coach. But she's seen far far more intricate maneuvers: A friend once made a total poster for spirit week, including glitter, during the commute to school.

"She had her glue and her glitter. She would pour it out on the glue and then pour it in the jar -- I don't think she spilled a single bit of glitter, " she said.

Grace's bottom school is Chantilly. Like almost any traffic-hardened veteran, she separates your ex commuting time into "good visitors days" and "bad traffic times. "

"Sometimes if traffic is very good, we get there from 8 a. m., " vacation of about a half-hour, Grace said. "And sometimes we get there right before the bell rings" from 8: 30. On a recent icy morning that spawned a large number of car accidents and backups, Grace achieved it to school at 9: 25.

She sees the positives. "You make a great deal of friends on the bus. I can take homework that I don't discover how to do and say, 'Here, guide me. ' There's some math whizzes within the bus. It's like study corridor. "

In Prince William County, 18-year-old Alan Hogan's hour-long bus ride is a lot more like those of old: No magnetic school, he just lives within the rural, western part of this county. The stars are still bright when Hogan gets for the bus each morning. He attends Stonewall Jackson School, near Manassas. Prince William is constructing a high school for western-area individuals, but it won't open till 2004.

Until then, the kids just get accustomed to the journey.