Uses Marcus Pfister's The Rainbow Fish to teach children about friendship and ways you should treat friends.

Materials:

• The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
• 6 inch half circles cut out of construction paper (the scales)
• A large cut out of a fish to put the scales on.

Draw a line at the top of the scale (the round part), so the children know where to write their quality.

Plan:

1. Read the Rainbow Fish to the children.
2. Go over the importance of friendship with the children, and make a list on the board of qualities that friends have or should have.
3. Have the children go back to their seats and hand out a scale to each child.
4. Tell the children to write a quality that they would like a friend to have, or something they do for a friend. It could be a sentence or a word. They can decorate their scale if they want.
5. After they have finished with their scale, put the giant fish on the wall and add their scales to it.
6. The children will love seeing the creation of their own giant Rainbow Fish.

* You can also put glitter on the scales to help create the Rainbow Fish's sparkling scales.

Comments:

I did this activity in my classroom and the children loved it. They were able to list many things that friends should do, and they came up with their own ideas on the scales. They loved to see the giant Rainbow Fish on the wall. I also made mini fish with each child's name on it, so people knew who created this beautiful masterpiece.

• The Rainbow Fish Big Book
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