The Rainbow Fish: Collaborative Preschool Painting Collage Art Activity

The (Fancy) Rainbow Fish

I think maybe every child in this country has been read The Rainbow Fish, by Marcus Pfister.  The reason kids like it is because it has super shiny iridescent detailing in the illustrations.  To quote one preschooler, "it's fancy."

We recently studied fish in class, and of course read the fancy book.  This collaborative canvas work was an easy and fun tie-in.  Children were presented with various acrylic paints, iridescent wrapping paper scraps, and art tissue as materials.  They used paint brushes and rubber fish replicas as tools.

Several years ago there was an ECE trend in experiencing the Japanese art of Gyotaku.  This is when children use real dead fish to make prints.  We've never used real fish for three reasons:  1) It's stinks, like, literally, 2) Some children are allergic to fish, 3) In my opinion, it just seems... disrespectful to fish.  We've found the rubber fish replicas work excellently for making paint prints, and they can also double as pretend play props.

Can you spot the seaweed, starfish and sea anemone?