Rainbow Fish Crepe Paper Collage Art

The Children’s book, Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister, has always had a special spot in my heart. From the time it was published in 1992, I have loved the illustrations, and especially the morals (sharing and humility bring happiness).

 

The author has since published many more books that teach about character and social skills (click here for more information). I think these books are perfect for classrooms & home, especially since schools are being given more and more responsibility for teaching children basic character and social skills.

 

So here is a fun activity to do after reading the book. Use it as an opportunity to discuss these character traits and social skills with your child or student.

 

I had attended a birthday party recently and some of the crepe ribbons were all crumpled and lying on the floor. So we decided to repurpose them for this craft. Lil P tore the ribbons into tiny pieces and sorted them into tiny bowls by color. Then I gave her a purple glue stick that she loves to use. n here’s the result. She did it all by herself.

 

 

Here’s how we made it.

Take printout of the above image

 We cut the fish out and then began ripping different colored construction paper to glue onto the fish. We glued the construction paper onto the fish, overlapping the previous piece of construction paper to create the collage. We reviewed primary and secondary colors and were to identify which of the colors we used in our fish.

 

For an extension activity, we could make an ocean theme craft activity and place the fish in the ocean or on a bulletin board. We can then create a story of how the fish helped other fish in the ocean, just like Rainbow Fish did. Kids can work together on their stories and create one big class story of how their fish would be a helpful fish in the ocean.