Preschool children are hopping on the bus around Stevens Point and the surrounding area.
The bus is the brightly painted TumbleTots TumbleBus, which brings a gymnastics and rock-climbing program to children ages 15 moths to 9 years.
Tammy Hanna and Heather Schuerman are the certified instructors handling the structured classes for day-care centers and other events.
The philosophy of the program is to build each child's esteem and confidence and to develop each child's kinesthetic awareness, sensory motor perception and overall physical coordination.
The bus stops in Stevens Point on Mondays, making five stops between 8:45 a.m. and 2 p.m. The other days of the week it operates in Wisconsin Rapids and Marshfield.
TumbleBus is a full-sized school bus transformed into a gym containing bars, beam, vault, trampoline, ropes, rings and a rock wall for climbing. The equipment has been scaled down to preschool size.
Hanna said the bus mainly serves day-care centers but some parents drop their children off for the program.
Classes are structured with weekly lesson plans, and children learn creative movement to music, jumps with open and closed feet, bearwalking, swinging on a bar, bouncing with two feet, backward roll, donkey kicks, tuck jumps and half-turn jumps.
She said the bus program started last year and has been been well received, with children enjoying their time on the bus.