We are O-FISH-ally approaching the end of the school year quite quickly and we are wrapping up our Virtual Book Club for Kids with a few final favorite books.
This month for Virtual Book Club for Kids we are featuring the book The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister, We created a simple fish themed name activity to go along with the book. It is a great addition to the collection of other simple Rainbow Fish inspired activities that we've shared before.
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The Rainbow Fish is a book about a little fish who finds friendship and happiness when he learns to share. My kids especially love the glittery scales on the front cover of the book. I had one little student who read this book every day for an entire year when I was her teacher. Whenever I read this book now I feel like I am hanging out with an old friend. If you haven't read the book, you might want to check it out with your little one and give it a try... and then pick one of our crafts or activities to do afterwards.
MATERIALS NEEDED TO MAKE NAME PUZZLES:
- colored cardstock (2 pieces per person)
- Sharpie
- scissors
- crayons
- tape
HOW TO MAKE NAME PUZZLES:
Since we read The Rainbow Fish we decided to make our puzzles shaped liked fish. You can actually make these using any shape you would like to use.
We started off by cutting fish shapes out of cardstock and then the kids decorated them with crayons.
Next we traced the fish onto another piece of colored cardstock to create an outline. We went over the outline using black Sharpie.
After that we wrote each child's name on the fish and then we cut out each letter to make a name puzzle.
We traced the puzzle pieces onto the outline to make a puzzle piece outline.
To finish up the name puzzles we handed each child a baggie with name puzzle pieces and their job was to build their name puzzle on top of their cardstock name outline.
I used tape to secure the paper outline in place so that it didn't blow around and make kids annoyed while they tried to put their puzzles together.
WHY ARE NAME ACTIVITIES IMPORTANT?
One of the best ways for children to get started learning about the alphabet is through exploring letters that have meaning to them. Often the first letters a child will learn are the ones that are in their name. We love name activities because they help kids recognize the letters in their name and it makes learning personal to them as they begin to associate alphabet letters with their names!
CHECK OUT THESE OTHER RAINBOW FISH INSPIRED ACTIVITIES:
Our Virtual Book Club for Kids co-hosts have also come up with a variety of Rainbow Fish inspired activities. Click on the links below to go to the full tutorials.
Rainbow Fish Scratch Art :: Sugar, Spice and Glitter
Rainbow Fish Sugar Cookies :: Rainy Day Mum
Preschool Rainbow Fish Color Mixing Experiment :: Preschool Powol Packets
Rainbow Fish Note Cards :: Growing Book by Book
Rainbow Fish Gross Motor Activities :: 3 Dinosaurs
Rainbow Fish Alphabet Matching Craft :: I Can Teach My Child
Puzzles are a great way to work on visual matching and perception. I also love that it works on learning your name too.
Oh this is great! We've never made name puzzles before, I think it's going to have to be on our activity list for today!