The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister is about a beautiful fish who learns to make friends by sharing his most prized possessions. He shares his shimmering scales with others. This book has a great theme of sharing, with rainbow-colored foil stamping glitters on every page. 

Guided Reading: Level M

Classroom Activities:

1. Go over the importance of friendship with the children, and make a list on the board of qualities that friends have or should have.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. After they have finished with their scale, put the giant fish on the wall and add their scales to it.

Review:

This book is all about sharing and friendship. This book is a great way to introduce the importance of sharing with students. The fish in this book feels like he is the only fish in the whole ocean. That is until he shares his shiny scales with some other friends in the ocean and that brings him happiness. 

Leveling System:

Lexile AD610L

Classroom Activity:

I would use this book in my classroom as a English lesson. We would use our describing words to figure out how the fish is feeling and ways to describe his scales. We would also do a writing activity that would include the students coming up with their own twist to the story. For example, rewriting it using different characters. This will tap into their retelling skills. 

The Rainbow Fish is a cute and fun tale about happiness and friendliness. This book is known for its art and morally driven story. The leveling system is The Lexile, reading level AD610L. Students can create a beautiful fish with foil papers, paints and construction paper. Once their fish is created they can name their fish after something that makes them happy.

A sweet story about a fish that is learning how to share. A fish is happier when they are sharing with others. Sometimes even sharing their very special sparkly scales. The other friends start to befriend this fish and accept them for who he is, rather than just a pretty sparkly fish, especially now that they all have something in common. Lets all draw a picture of something that you can share with others. We will all share our pictures with the rest of the class. 

Lexile Level: AD610L

This book was written and illustrated for children. This book is about a fish who finds friendship when he learns how to share.The purpose of this book is to teach children important morals like the importance of sharing and how sharing can bring happiness and acceptance. Therefore, I would incorporate this book into my classroom when teaching my students about morals and character strengths. (Book Reading Level: AR 3.3)