The Rainbow Fish

 

A new school year has begun!  For many of Reece's friends, it means they are off to preschool a couple of mornings a week.  We are continuing to experiment with homeschooling (and save some cash) by doing preschool at home this year.  We typically do about 45 minutes each morning upstairs in our spare bedroom - Reece's "school room."  He proudly shares what he has learned in school with his friends when they talk about their schools.  It's pretty adorable.


Every week or two we will be focusing on a different picture book (send your recommendations!).  We read the book every day and then do a variety of activities that relate to it.  We have begun with The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, a great little story about a fish who learns that sharing with your friends is more important than beauty.  Reece can use some reinforcement on sharing now that he is back playing with his friends regularly, so this book has been a timely choice him.  His favorite part is the "wise old octopus" and he loves to say the octopus' lines in a deep voice.

Here is all the fun we had with The Rainbow Fish!

We retold the story of the Rainbow Fish in play-dough.  He had a lot of fun with this, despite the look on his face in the picture!

Reece is the rainbow fish here, using tongs to share shimmering scales (pom poms) among different numbers of fish.  We talked a lot about making it fair for each fish (we'll learn the word "equal" later).

Daddy and Reece made a counting octopus.  Reece is matching the numbers written on each tentacle to the number stickers.

Our Rainbow Fish sensory bin.  This was not mom's greatest sensory bin effort, but Reece has had fun acting out the story and scooping rice.

Pattern block fish.  Reece was very focused on doing one color/shape at a time.

And of course, we made a Rainbow Fish with shimmering tinfoil scales!  Sticking with an art project from start to finish pushed Reece's patience a bit, but he was excited with the end result.