The Rainbow Fish - Marcus Pfister
Character Traits and Themes Kindergarten
Primary Character Trait:
Getting Along - Contributing to and gaining from positive relationships
Basic Need:
Love and Belonging - The need for relationships, social connections, to give and receive affection and to feel part of a group
Objectives
The learner will:
· Develop a further understanding of the Character Trait: Getting Along
· Begin to develop an understanding of the 5 Basic Needs: specifically, Love and Belonging
· Make connections through understanding how the characters and events in the picture book demonstrate the importance of getting along
· Make connections between events and characters in The Rainbow Fish to our own lives, and articulate those connections through speaking and writing
· Use effective communication and social skills in a class meeting format
Grade Level Content Expectations
Kindergarten
R.NT.00.02 Identify the basic form and purpose of a variety of narrative genre including stories, nursery rhymes, poetry, and songs.
R.NT.00.03 Discuss setting, characters, and events in narrative text.
R.NT.00.04 Identify how authors/illustrators use literary devices including pictures and illustrations to support the understanding of settings and characters.
R.NT.00.05 Respond to individual and multiple texts by finding evidence, discussing, illustrating, and/or writing to reflect, make meaning, and make connections.
R.CM.00.01 Begin to make text-to-self and text-to-text connections and comparisons by activating prior knowledge and connecting personal knowledge and experience to ideas in text through oral and written responses.
Resources
Trade Book: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister
Supplemental Trade Books:
Lionni, L. (1973). Swimmy Dragonfly books
Carle, E. (1988). Do You Want to Be My Friend? Philomel Books
Clements, A. (1997). Big Al Atheneum
Content Area Books to nurture wonder:
Parker, S. (2005). DK Eye Witness Books: Fish DK Children
Peck, J. (2004). Way Down Deep in the Deep Blue Sea Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing
Pulley Sayre, A. (2007). Trout! Trout! Trout!: A Fish Chant NorthWord Books for Young Readers
Estimated Time Parameters
One day More than one day Mini-unit
Introduction
Class Meeting – Getting Along
Introduce the character trait of getting along using the following prompt:
All of us have met and talked with people who are very different from ourselves. Sometimes we get along with those people and sometimes we don’t. What are some necessary things that people need to do in order to get along with one another?
Define: What does it mean to get along?
Personalize: Tell about a time when you and/or someone else got along.
Challenge: Is it possible to get along with everyone all the time? Why or why not?
Instruction
1. Invite students to actively listen to the read-aloud through one of the following introductions:
Start out by singing the familiar song, “Make New Friends, but Keep the Old.” (If you are not familiar with this song, here is an adorable rendition: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5l_Ud0EJhtU.) Once you’re finished singing, discuss the importance of the song as it relates to friendship. Explain that you will be sharing a story with them about friendship during today’s read-aloud.
OR
Today we are going to visit a world where fish are like humans, where they talk, feel, share, and think like we do! During this visit, we are going to understand the importance of getting along while exploring the deep blue sea! Let’s take a journey to a deep, bubbly ocean far, far, away, where there once lived a rainbow fish with beautiful, sparkly scales…
2. Read aloud the book, The Rainbow Fish. As you read the book, tell the students that they will be looking for all of the different ways the sea animals meet and get along. Key questions you may ask to help students have a focus are: How do the different species interact? Are they nice to one another? How do the animals show that they are getting along?
Activity Ideas
The Friendship Fish!
Materials: 6 inch pieces of colored construction paper or foil paper in the shape of a scale, pencils, crayons
Ask students to take part in creating a classroom display of things that are important in friendships.
· As a whole group, create a list on the board of qualities that friends have or should have.
· Ask students to go back to their seats and hand out a scale to each child.
· Ask students 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.
· Ask students to decorate their scales, being careful not to cover their words.
· After they have finished with their scales, put the giant fish on the wall and ask students to post them in a spot of their choosing.
· After students have posted their scales, read through each scale, pausing to celebrate each student’s addition.
Love and Belonging – Reading Log/Journal Entry
Discuss with students that Rainbow Fish gave a bit of himself in order to connect with the other fish. Discuss the concept that people also give of themselves in friendships. Ask students to respond to one or more of the following questions in their reading logs/journals.
· What are three things that you give to your friends? Why do you give them these things? (It may be appropriate to explain/model that we as people often give things we can’t touch (ie: love, honesty, loyalty to our friends.)
· What are three things that you receive from your friends? How do these things make you feel?
· If you were Rainbow Fish, would you have given the fish your beautiful scales? Why or why not?
Evaluation/Assessment
1. Informal observations of student participation during class meetings can serve as a means for assessing student understanding of the character trait of getting along.
2. The love and belonging reading log/journal entry can serve as an assessment of whether or not students understand the basic need love and belonging.
3. Successful completion of his or her scale can serve as a means for assessing the students’ understanding of how people get along/make friends.
Developing Character Through American Literature The Rainbow Fish
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