Make this activity a learning experience. By combining story telling, imagination, creativity and fine motor skills you can give your child a great experience that will bring you together along with experiencing learning a good moral lesson.
The Rainbow Fish is an award-winning book about a beautiful fish who finds friendship and happiness when he learns to share. The book is best known for its morals about the value of being an individual and for the distinctive shiny foil scales of the Rainbow Fish.
for this activity you will need the following items:
- The book “The Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister
- if you don’t have the book you can listen and see it on this website http://www.storylineonline.net/the-rainbow-fish/
- Blue construction paper
- Tissue paper (assorted colors)
- Foil paper
- Scissors
- Glue
The rainbow fish book offers great lessons about sharing, making friends, being humbled. It opens up to conversation with your child that can help them understand better social interactions between peers.
Here are some questions you can ask your children while reading or after reading the story:
Questions during reading
When Rainbow Fish refuses give the blue fish one of his scales
- Was Rainbow Fish wrong?
- Was the blue fish acting out of line for asking for something so dear to Rainbow Fish’s heart? Was he asking too much of Rainbow Fish?
- What’s the point of being beautiful if you have no friends to admire them?
When the Octopus tells Rainbow Fish to give away his scales
- Is the octopus right in saying having friends is more important than being beautiful?
- When the octopus says, “… You will discover how to be happy,” is she saying that what Rainbow Fish thought of as happy before wasn’t actually true happiness?
After the blue fish receives a scale
- Is it selfish of the other fish to demand Rainbow Fish of all his scales?
- The book says that Rainbow Fish grew more and more delighted as he gave away his scales. Is this true in all cases? If not, give examples.
Questions after reading
- Was Rainbow Fish’s decision to share worth it?
- Rainbow Fish was happy with his scales, and he was happy with his new friends. Are there different kinds of happiness?
- Are they true friends if one of the main reasons they like Rainbow Fish is because he gave them something pretty?
- If Rainbow Fish refused to give the blue fish the scale politely, would this have changed the other fish’s perception of him?
- Do you share with your friends? Do you share everything with them
Cut blue construction paper in the shape of a fish.
Cut scales out of color tissue paper and foil paper.
