Rainbow Fish Craft Ideas: Printable Template

The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister is a story about a fish with sparkly, shimmering scales, who initially will not share his scales with the other fish. He soon realizes it is better to share his scales and have friends to play with, then to be alone. This story plot relates well to a young child's life and having a theme, whether for a day or longer, all around The Rainbow Fish, can be enjoyed within any early childhood environment. The theme may be incorporated into other lesson plans, such as an ocean theme, rainbow and color lessons, and with discussions about friendship and sharing. The following article provides a craft, drama, song and cooking activity for The Rainbow Fish preschool theme.


Rainbow Fish Craft Ideas

Provide each child the outline of the rainbow fish, whether you use this template to cut out fish shapes with color construction paper, or copy and past the template and make prints. Following are different ideas to create a rainbow fish.

• tissue paper cut into pieces
• construction or card paper cut into pieces
• recycled candy wrappers
• old birthday cards
• wrapping paper
• buttons
• tin foil pieces
• beads
• rhinestones/jewels
• bingo markers
• sponge painting

When the young children finish gluing the scales onto the small paper plate, the fins, tail and googly eye can be attached as needed to finish the project.


**Alternatively, toddlers could use bingo markers for the scales.

A Drama Activity for a Rainbow Fish Theme

Try having the young children act out the story in a large space, such as a gym or fenced in yard. Each child will be given his role by having a letter taped onto his/her body. The fish characters will have the letter F , which can be many more than the book displays. There is a starfish and octopus in the book, which again, can be extended with other sea creatures, to provide more characters for the children to act out and use their imagination. The child who is selected to be the rainbow fish might wear a shirt with scales attached to it. The scales can be attached with material and thread or fabric paint. The shiny scales must be attached with a devise that can be removed by a preschool hand, such as Velcro. As the story is being narrated by the adult, the rainbow fish will eventually give a shiny scale away to each child who is a fish swimming around.

Rainbow Fish Preschool Song

Singing some songs to correlate to The Rainbow Fish theme will inevitably work well with a group of young children. Aside from singing some classic ocean songs, like "Slippery Fish" by Charlotte Diamond, singing songs about a rainbow would work as well. The following rainbow fish song is sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star":



A rainbow fish in the sea

All the colors, a sight to see.

Red and yellow, green and blue

Yellow, orange, purple too

A rainbow fish in the sea

All the colors, a sight to see.

Preschool Cooking Activity: Rainbow Bagel

For an activity involving food, and preparing a snack to eat, try providing each child with a small bagel. Then make small dishes of different colored cream cheese, created by using a small amount of food coloring. Each child can enjoy spreading different colors of cream cheese onto his/her bagel to create a rainbow snack. This activity is not only fun, but also fosters fine motor development and self help skills.



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Rainbow Fish Felt Board Story

Online Early Childhood Workshops with Circle of Ideas 

                                  

Transportation Songs for Preschool Theme

Transportation is such a classic topic for preschool environments. Following are some songs to include into a transportation theme.


Song #1
"The Wheels on the Bus":

The cars on the road go beep beep beep...all around the town

The planes in the sky go zoom zoom zoom...all around the town

The trains on the track go chug, chug, chug...all around the town

The boats on the water go swish, swish, swish....all around the town

Song#2
Suggested tune: “Old Macdonald Had a Farm”

Drake (child’s name) the driver drives his car

Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

And on his car there are some wheels,

Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

And the car goes beep beep here and beep beep there.

Here a beep, there a beep, everywhere a beep beep.

Drake the driver drives his car,

Vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom, vroom.

Pat the pilot flies the plane,

Zoom, zoom , zoom, zoom , zoom.

And on the plane there are some wings,

Zoom, zoom ,zoom.

And the plane flies up here, and lands there,

Up here and lands there.

Pat the pilot flies the plane,

Zoom, zoom , zoom ,zoom, zoom.

Sally the Sailor has a boat,

Swish swish swish, swish, swish.

And on the boat there is a sail,

Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.

It glides up a wave, and down a wave,

Up a wave and down a wave.

Sally the Sailor has a boat,

Swish, swish, swish, swish, swish.


Song#3

To the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star"

Twinkle twinkle traffic light

Standing on the corner bright

Green means GO, we all know

Yellow means WAIT, even if you're late

Red means STOP......

Twinkle twinkle traffic light,

Standing on the corner bright.


Song#4
To the tune of Farmer in the Dell

Jack takes a trip

Jack takes a trip

He packs his bags and calls a cab

Jack takes a trip

They travel there by plane

They travel there by plane

Up and down and all around

They travel their by plane
 

 Further reading suggestions:

Car Preschool Theme by Christine Moore

Transportation Theme by Christine Moore

Preschool Songs for Learning Colors

Young children begin to learn the names of colors as early as two, and should know their basic colors by preschool age. Sometimes, without the repetition of labeling colors, the learning process will take a little longer. Music is a great way to incorporate repetition and teaching with young children.

Young kids are not only drawn to music naturally, but when combined with visual presentation and actions, the songs can be an effective teaching tool. The following article provides a variety of songs to sing, and listen to, with young children to guide them with color recognition.

Rainbow Songs for Young Children

The rainbow is a wonderful way to teach colors to young children, and in addition, introduce some lessons about weather and science concepts. Song lyrics can teach children that rainbows come out with the combination of sun rays and rain. In addition, try finding some color scarves at second hand stores and dancing with them to the lyrics. If you can find enough to make a rainbow, then have the child or children find the color scarf that matches the lyrics to the song.

Moreover, there are great you tube videos with rainbow graphics providing more visual aides.

The following song was written by Arthur Hamilton and was sung by Peggy Lee in a 1955 movie, titled Pete Kelly's Blues. Recently, the song was recorded for Tourism Australia in 2004 by Delta Goodrem. There is critique of this song because it does not provide all the right colors of the rainbow, but the song still provides teachable moments for color labeling.

I Can Sing a Rainbow

(Chorus)

Red and yellow and pink and green

Purple and orange and blue

I can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow

Sing a rainbow too

Listen with your eyes, listen with your ears

And sing everything you see

You can sing a rainbow, sing a rainbow

Sing along with me.

Found on KidsTV123 and you tube, The Rainbow Colors Song by AJ Jenkins has vibrant graphics for viewing and the easy listening lyrics correlate more effectively to the actual colors of the rainbow.

This song about rainbows can be sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star:

I see a rainbow in the sky

All the colors streaming by

When there's sunshine and rain too

A rainbow forms for me and you

I see a rainbow in the sky

All the colors streaming by.

 

Children's Action Songs about Colors

This song is a song that works well for a group circle in an early childhood setting, but can also be sung for a small group of children or just one. If only one child is doing the actions to the song, he/she should wear clothes with a lot of different colors. The lyrics explain the actions in this song:

Red, red is the color I see

If you're wearing red, then show it to me.

Stand up, turn around

Show me your red, then sit back down.

Blue, blue is the color I see....

Try singing the classic song, the Hokey Pokey but call it the Color Pokey. A child will put different color stickers on his/her shoe, hand, elbow, knee and so on. Then the song will be sung with the following lyrics and actions:

The Color Pokey

You put your red shoe in, you put your red shoe out,

You put your red shoe in, and you shake it all about.

You do the color pokey and you turn yourself around

And that's what it's all about.

The song will continue with the color which is sticking to whatever body part that was chosen.

Children's Game with Music

A fun color game that goes along with music is called Do You See?

(To the Tune of Do You Know the Muffin Man?)

Do you see a red color, a red color, a red color

Do you see a red color, sitting in this room?

The child or children can go and find something red by bringing it to you or simply pointing to something red. The song can continue with many different colors and in various scenarios and locations, such as replacing room with car or playground, and so on.

FURTHER SUGGESTIONS

Visit Felt Board Ideas for felt stories and activities to correlate with learning colors!

 

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