Lessons from the Rainbow Fish

Authors note: I am still amazed at the statement “reading books and novels are not educational“. To prove that statement wrong, I will be doing a series of book reviews to show how through these supposed non-educational materials, we can learn what is truly essential.

One of my favorite childrens books is Marcus Pfister’s Rainbow Fish. It is a very simple tale of a fish living in the ocean but it’s message runs deep. Often times kids are initially attracted to the beautiful colors and sparkly scales this little fish has on the cover of the book but once the story is read to them, they learn very important lessons ranging from being nice, to sharing, and even to loving once self in spite and despite of things around them.I love using this story whenever I talk about the themes “self” and “friendship” in my preschool classes. Believe it or not, even my toddlers (around two-and-a-half to three years old) remember the lessons rainbow shares very well.

The story revolves around a very beautiful and sparkly fish. Rainbow is undoubtedly the most beautiful fish in the ocean. However, because she is boastful and proud, she belittles and is mean to those who are not as pretty as her. She also refused to share her sparkly scales with a little fish who asks for one. Because of her attitude, she has no friends and is lonely. With the guidance of Mr. Octopus, Rainbow realizes that it doesn’t matter if you are the prettiest one of them all if you have no friends at all.

After I read this story to my kids, I overhear them telling each other things like “remember Rainbow said to share” or “Do you want to be like Rainbow and have no friends?”. Granted the toddlers may not use as well-crafted a sentence or two, the essence is there. For my older kids, the story shows them how beauty is more than just skin-deep and that inner beauty is what really counts.

Another bonus to having storybooks as springboards for lessons in the classroom is that it extends to so many different subject areas. For example, with the story of Rainbow Fish, I am able to teach math. How? As a follow-up, after the story I do an arts and crafts activity where the kids make their own rainbow fishes. They have free-range to place the scales of Rainbow. Then I use this to practice simple math equations like if Rainbow Fish has 10 scales and she gives away 3 to her friends, how many are left?. There are so many more variations to this depending on the characteristics of the scales we use in class. So tell me now that story books are not educational!

This book is definitely a must-have in any school or home library. I personally have 3 copies of it Click on the photo above to be redirected to Amazon.com and add this to your shopping cart!

Stay tuned for updates on my book review series.

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