Beyond the Book: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister

It's time for our weekly story stretcher and this week, per S's request for a book about fish, we dived right into one of my favorite children's books, The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. This book is about a fish who has many beautiful, sparkling scales but not many friends. The other fish in the ocean greatly admire his beauty and ask for him to share his precious, rainbow scales. The Rainbow Fish longs for friendship but struggles to share his most prized possessions. This book has some fabulous sub-themes, including rainbows/colors, fish/the ocean, and, of course, friendship and sharing. It is a great book to use with a group of students or a couple of siblings. 

Before I go into our activities for the week, let's talk a bit about sharing. In this book, the Rainbow Fish learns that it is better to have many friends than many material possessions. He ends up sharing all but one of his beautiful scales, but feels happy rather than less beautiful in the end. He is no longer lonely and is well liked by his peers. That's all lovely and sweet, but now let's get real. Sharing is about as natural for most children as our current president's tan. In fact, even many adults find sharing to be difficult. How often do you let your spouse or your children have your cell phone? How often do you give your best friend your shirt? The reality is that we all have things that our "ours" and things that are "community items," or things to be shared. For children, sharing is an act not only in letting go of something they truly like and want, but also an act of trusting they will get it back. That's hard! Before we have friends over here, I often ask S if there are any toys he would not like to share and put away for later. Sometimes even during a play date, a toy will be taken out of the mix if it is especially hard to share. We visit public play places to practice using toys that are "community items" for everyone to share. We foster opportunities to practice taking turns both in our home and away. We use a visual timer or a song as needed to designate the length of a "turn." My husband and I model sharing and give language around it, even at the dinner table if S asks for something from our plates. "I'm sharing my dessert with you." We have successes and challenges and it is important to keep our adult expectations on the matter realistic. Sharing is not always easy and it certainly is not a natural process for young children. Some children are more natural "sharers" than others--and no child is able to be a sharer all of the time.  The Rainbow Fish is a great book to demonstrate the challenges that come along with sharing special items and making friends.

And now onto our week's activities to take you beyond the book:

We've been doing our story stretchers in the afternoon. After his nap, S often needs some open play time to ease back into the day and setting out some theme related toys for both brothers was a great way to lure them into our story stretcher. 

S was soon ready to read! He was totally into the book. Y was totally into watching his brother!

As part of our story stretcher, we reviewed the letter Ff in this great do-a-dot sheet available for print from The Measured Mom. They work very well with dot markers, glass gems, dot stickers, pom poms and more...

I set out this Rainbow and Fish process art invitation along with a supplemental story, What Makes a Rainbow? A Magic Ribbon Book by Betty Ann Schwartz. I included Alex Rainbow Crayons, a selection of standard crayons taped across the center in rainbow colors and a couple of sets of skinny Mr. Sketch markers taped across the middle in rainbow order for creating a variety of rainbows and doodles. I also included a selection of fish stickers in rainbow colors.

I love setting out drawing and art opportunities on the floor. It invites children to work on their tummies (as pictured above) where they can practice building upper body strength and have more control between their bent elbows and hands. This is great for pre-writers and early writers as well as children who may display muscle weakness associated with writing. 

Y really liked What Makes a Rainbow?

I created a game to play called "Frogs and Fishies Share the Pond." To set it up, I used a selection of fish and frog paper die cuts (available from Dollar Tree) and wrote prompts pertinent to our family like "Pick a toy to share with your brother" or "Mommy shares a toy with S" or "ask someone to have a turn with the toy they are holding." I attached a paperclip to the mouth of each fish and frog and included a makeshift fishing rod with a magnet on the end. In a basket, we collected a variety of toys from around the house. I designated S as the "Fisherman," however, you can have players take turns going fishing. I would not suggest including any child's special transitional object in the mix as these are inherently hard to share--even if just for a short time and as part of a game. To play the game, each player starts with one toy from the basket. The Fisherman fishes for a frog or fish in the pond. Older readers or an adult can read the prompt. The player fulfills the action on the prompt for the course of one song. You can use a CD or recorded music or you may allow the player to pick a song to sing to designate the "turn." For instance, the player may have a frog that says "share a toy with your Mommy" and the player can hand his toy to the recipient and choose to sing the ABCs while he waits to have it returned. It's a great opportunity to also demonstrate and model language around sharing toys. 

S particularly liked this game! He was able to practice and roll play sharing our family's toys in a controlled and safe setting.

This invitation to create a rainbow fish collage was a fun way to use up some old scraps of shiny paper and patterned paper. Along with some glue, they really added pizzazz to these die cut fishies!

In our Invitation to Create a Rainbow Fish Sculpture, we used Crayola Model Magic Clay dyed blue with some food coloring, google eyes and a variety of colorful buttons and plastic gems. I also provided some fish shaped cookie cutters and a rolling pin. S needed a little help rolling the dough as it is a bit stiffer than standard play dough. It air dries beautifully and makes great magnets if you wish to glue a magnet on or lovely sculptures to display.

As he worked, he told great stories about what he was adding, including a traffic light with only red lights and a telephone to call his Poppa! I love how he added the excess clay from around the cookie cutter to the top to create fins!

I often include a sensory bin with our story stretchers and did not this week. If you'd like to add one to your own Rainbow Fish story stretcher, water play with fish/ocean toys would be great or sand/kinetic sand and sea shells. You could also make a batch of rainbow rice!

Next week we will be taking flight with an airplane themed story stretcher. Until then...happy playing!