Book and Art: The Rainbow Fish

We borrowed The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister last week, and just fell in love with it! Naturally, we had to come up with a craft to go along with such a wonderful story. This time, I asked the children what they thought would be fun to do and clay got a unanimous vote.

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I used the air-drying clay from the local dollar store, and we rolled it out under wax paper to avoid sticking. The kids did a great job with this, and only needed a little help getting the rolling started. (Excuse the blur, but they were pushing so hard that I couldn't get a clear shot!)

I used a coloring page as a template and the kids lightly traced around the outside and then cut away the extra clay. Then they drew in freehand the basic lines of the fish. I did help the smallest member of our tribe, age 2.

After it dried, which took about a day, I put out a few colous of paint (including silver and gold) and they painted their fish. I think the end results speak for themselves.

Extend the activity:

-My Rainbow Fish Pinterest Board
-Put together a Story Sack using this great set of Rainbow Fish Story Resources from Twinkl
-Have the children re-tell the story using these great free printable Rainbow Fish visual aids from Sparklebox

-Watch The Rainbow Fish read by Ernest Borgnine
-Rainbow Fish flannel board
-Rainbow Fish math board game to download free from Communication 4 All
-Rainbow Fish memory game 

-Erin, The Usual Mayhem