Diving into Learning with The Rainbow Fish 🐠🌈🐠🌈🐠🌈🐠🌈🐠🌈🐠🌈🐠

Another week, another fantastic story

Another week brought another magical story to life at Fun Box. Following on from the children’s continued fascination with underwater creatures, we took the opportunity to dive deeper—this time with the beautiful tale of The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister.

This well-loved story follows a dazzling fish, famous for his shimmering scales. Though admired by all, the Rainbow Fish initially chooses not to share his scales with others, leaving him feeling lonely and isolated. With the guidance of a wise octopus, he learns the joy of giving and the importance of kindness. By sharing his scales, he discovers true friendship and a sense of belonging. It’s a touching story, perfect for exploring themes of sharing, empathy, and community.

Inspired by The Rainbow Fish

Inspired by the story, our week was filled with rich, hands-on activities that supported development across all areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS).

Chalking outdoors

One of our highlights was taking our creativity outdoors. The children used chalk to draw and decorate different fish shapes on the garden pavement. This not only encouraged gross motor skills and coordination but also sparked conversations about the colours and patterns of underwater life. Indoors, we created a large collaborative fish display. Using cotton pads dipped in paint as scales, each child contributed their own touch—just as the Rainbow Fish shared his scales with friends. This activity supported fine motor development and inspired imaginative design choices.

Beautiful Collages

Our learning extended into expressive arts and communication as we crafted beautiful underwater collages, using a variety of textures and colours. While making their artwork, the children reflected on the story, sharing their ideas and feelings about the Rainbow Fish's journey. These discussions helped build language and storytelling skills, allowing them to explore big ideas like generosity and kindness in ways they could relate to.

Sensory trays

A sensory tray filled with sand, water, and toy sea creatures offered another layer of exploration. This immersive play experience engaged children’s senses and supported their understanding of the natural world. It also provided a setting for role play and social interaction, strengthening their communication and social development.

Discussions

Throughout the week, the story of The Rainbow Fish anchored our learning. It sparked thoughtful discussions, creative expression, and meaningful connections—all while supporting development across EYFS areas including communication and language, personal, social and emotional development, physical development, expressive arts and design, literacy, and understanding the world.

Our underwater adventure may be ending for now, but the messages of kindness, sharing, and friendship will continue to ripple through everything we do at Fun Box. 🐟🌊✨