Rainbow Fish

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Rainbow Fish
By Darci

Hi! How exciting! We do an entire month on whales and fish......and tie it into our mammals unit. We even have a whale that is made of tarps and is inflated with two box fans. It is the size of the gym floor and we actually
have class in it! I have tapes of whales (those tapes you buy at Target that have music and sounds of nature). We lay in there with flashlights and pretend we are either in a whale or an actual whale. I have several other books that we use that have cool things to do to go along with them. (Let me know if you want titles.)
I have the kids decorate a pretty-good-sized fish

that I have cut out of either paper bags or brown mailing paper. I cut out two shapes each and staple them together and then we stuff them with just several kleenex. It makes them 3-D. They get to choose the color fish they make, but it must be ONE color of tissue paper. (I have small rectangles cut out of each color available and then have the rec. in baggies so each student gets to choose one.) We talk about which way the scales go and then they run a gluestick on ONE END of the rectangles and put them on the fish. (Begin at the tail and then have them overlap them until they get to the head. You can help them trim them up if it gets too wild, but they catch on quickly if you show them an example.) I give them two wiggly eyes when they are done for fun. Then as I read the story of The Rainbow Fish, I bring out my "beautiful fish" completely made of that silver-glittery wrapping paper that you can purchase at Target or the like. It works great! I have extra scales in a baggy cut from my glitter paper and at the end of the story, I share a beautiful scale with each student who glues it on theirs.
I hang them from the ceiling in our reading meeting center and the kids tell me it is like sitting in an aquarium! lol We do this in the winter and the kids loved it so much that they voted to leave it up all year!
Enjoy your underwater adventure this year! Darci