The Rainbow Fish
About the story:
The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus
Pfister, is about a little fish who learns a lesson about sharing. The
best thing about this book is the really neat shiny foil scales that glitter
wonderfully during bedtime story!
You can read more reviews, view the front cover or purchase the story at Amazon.com. See the bottom of this page for other Rainbow Fish stories, videos and books offered in other languages.
There's even a Rainbow Fish cartoon on television now.
Rainbow Fish Crafts:
- Coffee Filter Rainbow Fish Craft (Age 2+) - A wonderful craft for young children that turns out REALLY nicely.
- Rainbow Fish Paper Craft (Age 2+) - This craft is simple but ends up looking amazingly rainbow fish-like
- Octopus Toilet Paper Roll Craft (Age 3+) - The octopus (a girl) dispenses wise advise to Rainbow Fish and helps him see the benefit of sharing. She basically says "SHARING WITH OTHERS BRINGS TRUE HAPPINESS."
- Triangle Fish Shapes Craft (Age 2+) - Make some of the other fish (the ones that Rainbow Fish ends up sharing with) and practice your shapes at the same time. Add a small square scale of tinfoil to your triangle fish if you want them to look like they did at the end of the story.
- Other Ocean Crafts on the Site
- Contributed by Christie: My daycare kids love Rainbow Fish, and I have a couple more ideas to share. I got this from a seminar 2 years ago. You provide the children with a tracing of Rainbow Fish(large sheet of paper -- You can use the template from Rainbow Fish Paper Craft if you like) Choose a few different colors of paint on paper plates, and give the children a balloon that is blown up just to fit in their fist. They dip the balloon in the paint and stamp inside the fish body (balloon stamping). I also made a Rainbow Fish pizza for lunch that day. Shape the fish from the dough, add the sauce and cheese, and the "scales" are formed from pepperoni or Canadian bacon or whatever works!
- Rita offered these suggestions: "I just wanted to tell you about
something we did when we were reading Rainbow Fish. We made blue
glitter play dough (just put silver glitter in the play dough) and the
children formed fish from it, then I provided metallic craft disks
bought at Wal Mart and they put in the shiny scales. They loved it."
..."This past week while we were doing Rainbow Fish the children colored Rainbow Fish, they painted over it with water colors. Then each day we "caught" them doing something kind, they got a "silver scale" to glue to their Rainbow Fish. They turned out really pretty and the kids loved working for their shiny scales." - Thanks to Allison for her contribution: "We used the story as a base for talking about sharing. After reading the book, we let children take turns being the fish that shares his/her scales, and stick shiny scales with tape on his/her shirt. A group of children "swim" around and the Rainbow Fish shares one scale with each. You could combine that with one of the craft ideas you've already placed online, and have the children share the resources to make the crafts."
Other Rainbow Fish Books/Videos:
This is the first of a series of Rainbow Fish books including:
- Rainbow Fish to the Rescue
-
Rainbow Fish and the Big Blue Whale
- Video: The Rainbow Fish and Dazzle the Dinosaur
- Video: Rainbow Fish - Fintastic Friends
- Video: Rainbow's Musical Adventure
You can also find Rainbow Fish in other languages:
- French - Arc-En-Ciel, Le Plus Beau Poisson Des Oceans
- German - Der Regenbogenfisch
- Japanese
- Spanish - El Pez Arco Iris