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Generosity through Rainbow Fish

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Kids can learn about generosity through “Rainbow Fish,” a beautiful book about the power of sharing. This easy and inexpensive kid-centered craft will teach creativity while also teaching generosity.

Want more lessons in generosity? Check out the generosity tab in my character-building series.

Generosity through Rainbow Fish

Generosity
Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. – 2 Corinthians 9:7 (littler kids can memorize the underlined portion)
 
 
Are you familiar with the “Rainbow Fish” by Marcus Pfister? It’s a wonderful little story about a beautiful fish (at least in appearance) who has sparkly rainbow scales. Another fish asks if he can have one of the scales, and he says no way. He loses all of his friends because of his selfishness. The wise octopus encourages him to share, and when the rainbow fish listens and begins giving away his rainbow scales, he gains friends again. If you don’t have the book, no worries. You can find it on YouTube. 
 

Materials Needed for Rainbow Fish Craft

Note: The following contains Amazon affiliate links. Anything you purchase through these links goes to support the free resources I provide here at Meaningful Mama. Thanks for your support. 

After reading the story, your kids get to create their own watercolor rainbow fish with glitter scales. I drew out this fish outline and made it a printable for you so that you can do this simple activity with your kids. If you print this fish, you can paint it with watercolors.  Then, add glue to some of the scales. Sprinkle the glitter on those scales. It’s that easy.
 
 
Perhaps you are wondering why Abby is the only one doing this activity. We were having issues with cleaning up our first activity.  The girls were supposed to clean up the beans that had been dumped on the floor. Abby cleaned up her half. Kenzie proceeded to dump those back out. I set the timer for 15 minutes, and I told her we were going to start the next activity in that time. If she finished, she could do it with us. If it wasn’t clean, sorry. Well, I had to follow through on the threat. She still hasn’t cleaned up this mess, and she is still in the same corner of the house a few hours later. Spirited kid.
 
 
 

Note: This post was originally written in 2012. It was updated in 2026 for clarity and quality.

Want More Character-Building Ideas Focused on Generosity?

Books About Generosity

Teaching Little Kids That They Can Make a Big Difference

Character Building Bucket List

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about jodi

ABOUT JODI

Wife of the perfect partner for me. Mother of Three. Lover of fun, creativity, cooking, adventure, puzzles, games, family but most importantly Jesus. I run the blog Meaningful Mama. The heart of my blog is the character development series for teaching kids. The icing on the top consists of parenting tips, crafts, recipes, cakes and more. Read more...

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Our preschool theme was fish a couple weeks ago… wish I had known about this then.

I would love it if you’d stop by and share at my first link party, Off the Hook:
http://daisycottagedesigns.blogspot.com/2012/05/introducing-off-hook-1.html

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I’ll try to see if I can link up there later. This week is CRAZY for me. Thank you so much for letting me know about it.

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Oh so pretty and fun! Thanks for sharing Jodi! I’d love for you to link up to the Summer Reading Adventure party if you get the chance 🙂 http://www.momontimeout.com/2012/06/summer-reading-adventure-week-2-rainbow.html

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I linked up. Thanks for the heads up.

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Enjoy! So glad you linked up to Summer Reading Adventure! Stop by at the end of the series to find out if you won the Tickle Monster book giveaway. Have a great 4th of July!

Mari Hernandez-Tuten
http://inspiredbyfamilymag.com/

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Thank you, Mari. Will do.

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What a beautiful craft! My son enjoys playing instead of cleaning at times too.

I would love for you to link this post to Read.Explore.Learn on my blog!

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I just linked up. Thanks for letting me know. I had fun visiting some of the other links as well.

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Using this for my preschool Sunday school class tomorrow! The passage is mark 9:35 though:-) thanks so much!

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http://www.storylineonline.net has this story read aloud (with illustrations from the book with some animation) read aloud by Ernest Borgnine. There are lots of other great books read aloud by various actors as well. It’s a free site, and you don’t even have to set up an account, log in, give your email, nothing but watch and listen with your children.

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Thanks for this resource. I was unaware of this site, and I bet my kids would love it.

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