Key Stage 2 Literacy
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The Rainbow Fish (Marcus Pfister)

Picture
Key Stage One Unit
The Rainbow Fish has provided opportunities for writing and discussion throughout the curriculum, not just in Literacy sessions. This is a story about the importance of sharing and how friendship and belonging can be a greater thing than possessions. The opportunities for Literacy lessons are endless. Below are just a few ideas to get you started but I invite you all to add your suggestions if you have any. 
Session 1
Teacher to read / watch the clip of The Rainbow Fish with the class. Who wrote the book? What is this person called? (author) Who drew the pictures? (rainbow fish) Read the blurb. Who are the characters?
Have a selection of stills from the story that the children can order afterwards. Can they retell the story to a friend or to another pair?
Draw a story mountain on the board – can the children work out what parts of the story goes in each part? Have we seen the story mountain before?
Opening      Rainbow fish in the sea
Build up      Blue fish asks for a scale. No!
Problem      Rainbow fish lonely. Starfish tells octopus
Resolution    Octopus tells RF to give scales. He does
Ending        He feels happy and has lots of friends
Tricky words – admired / emerged / wavered – what do these words mean? Where can we look to find out? HA to look in dictionary with teacher to check meaning.

Children to use the pictures they put in order earlier to write sentences underneath. Provide the children with strips of paper, long enough for all of the pictures to go on. Give space for sentences to be written underneath. Focus on full stops and capital letters at the beginning and end of the sentence. Model writing the sentence for the first image. Children to read them aloud to one another afterwards to show their understanding. Extension: can the children work in small groups to act the scene out?
This is the most interesting version of the video as it has been animated. It's a good starting point in addition to having a physical copy of the book on your bookshelves.

PSHE Links

Fish swim in schools, always working together. What sorts of things do we do when we 'collaborate?' Provide children with the outline of a fish/Rainbow Fish and ask them to suggest a word or series of words that tell us how pairs or groups of people work best together, such as 'listening,' or 'sharing' or 'thinking.' 
Session 2
Read / watch the story again up until point where he says NO! Should he have said this? Why not? How might the others be feeling right now? Can we empathise with the other fish? What is empathy and what might we do when we feel empathetic towards someone or something else? What are the consequences of acting this way? What happens now? How do you think he is feeling? Then read up until when he gives away his first scale…“Peculiar feeling”  – what is this feeling? Have you ever felt like this? What has he done? SHARED? Have we ever done something kind before that we know is the right thing to do? How did it make us feel? Has anyone ever done anything selfless before? 
Differentiated Feelings Sheets:
feelings_sheets.doc
File Size: 395 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

Picture
rainbowfish_colour_similes.doc
File Size: 93 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

Session 3
Look at a picture of the rainbow fish. What colours can we see? What colours are in the rainbow? Explain about shades of colours and how it is important to describe using more detail to help the reader imagine. Begin discussing similes: do we know what a simile is and when we might use one? Define that a simile uses ‘as’ or ‘like’ and ask the children to give a couple of examples after you have modelled some common ones like ‘as fast as a cheetah’ ‘as tall as a giraffe’ ‘wobbly like jelly’ etc. On several sheets of paper, have a different colour written in the middle of each and place the various sheets around the room on different tables. The children rotate around the room with a pencil writing anything that reminds them of that colour. For example: at the yellow table, they might write banana.
Main Activity: children to complete the Rainbow Fish similes sheet.
Session 4
The children should be able to re-tell the story of The Rainbow Fish to their partner without watching the video again. They still might like to use the visual prompts to help them (particularly EAL pupils). This week we will be focusing on building up to a piece of writing- the aim at the end of the week is to have re-written the story of RF in their own words using the feelings and colour words from last week as well. Before we do that though, we need to work on some simple sentence work: CL/FS
Look at a range of sentences from the RF that have not been punctuated and read it really quick without taking a breath. Ask the children if there was anything wrong? Hopefully they will help you to break it down. Have up on the iPad ready to edit and improve with the children. Model how we do this. Main: Differentiated worksheets...
rainbow_fish_punctuating_la.docx
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: docx
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rainbow_fish_punctuating_core
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: docx
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rainbow_fish_punctuating_ma.docx
File Size: 31 kb
File Type: docx
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Session 5
Today we will build on our understanding of sentences by looking at connectives. What are connectives? How can we use them? Let’s create a huge bank of connectives that we can use this year. Write or type them up as we go- maybe write on coloured strips of paper as these can then go on display. Look again at two sentences from The Rainbow Fish… how could we join these together best? Model with the children placing the best connective in the space between two SIMPLE sentences. Explain that when we join two simple sentences together we get a COMPOUND sentence.

rainbow_fish_connectives_la.doc
File Size: 44 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

rainbow_fish_connectives_core.doc
File Size: 45 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

rainbow_fish_connectives_ma.doc
File Size: 44 kb
File Type: doc
Download File

    Taught The Rainbow Fish? Any Ideas?

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I would like to remind all visitors to this website that all pages on this site are copyright protected, unless stated. Where content has been used from other sources (namely the DSCF, DFES or DFE), I take no credit whatsoever. Most importantly, this site is for the use and enjoyment of all children, parents, guardians, carers and teachers who are involved in Key Stage 2 Literacy. Please use the resources/ideas as you need without replicating them for your own gains.
Chris Birch 2011-2020
  • Home
  • Distance Learning
    • DL- English
    • DL- Maths
    • DL- Science
    • DL- History
    • DL- Art and Music
    • DL- Health
  • Early Morning Activities
  • Indoor Break Times
  • SPAG Zone!
  • Must-Have Websites
  • Blog
  • *AREAS OF STUDY*
    • Features of Texts: What Makes Good
    • Narrative/Stories >
      • Myths, Legends and Fables >
        • Beowulf
        • Robin Hood
        • Greek Myths
        • Myths To Use
        • Pandora's Box/Jar
      • Film Narrative >
        • Piano Writing
        • Frankenweenie
      • Stories from Other Cultures >
        • Egyptian Cinderella
        • Egyptian Traditional Tale
        • Egypt: One Off Lessons
        • Africa
      • Rainbow Fish
      • More Story Openers
    • Instructions >
      • Instructions - Vikings
      • Recipe For Friendship
      • Bossy 'Imperative' Verbs
    • Descriptive Writing >
      • Description Using Art
      • Description Using Art 2
      • Twenty-One Tunnels
      • Oi Caveboy Farlands!
      • Escape from Pompeii
    • Persuasion >
      • School Uniform Debate
      • Graffiti Debate
      • Deforestation Debate
      • Advertisements
      • Finding Your Voice- Environment
      • Holiday Resort Persuasion >
        • Holiday Videos- Egypt
        • Holiday Videos- Pompeii
      • Product Advertising
    • Explanation Texts
    • Recounts & Reports >
      • Newspapers
      • TV News Reports
      • Chronological Reports
      • Non Chronological
    • Authors >
      • Michael Morpurgo >
        • Meeting Morpurgo...
        • Friend or Foe
        • Kensuke's Kingdom
      • Mary Shelley
      • Jill Murphy
      • John Burningham
    • Diaries >
      • Studying Diaries
    • Poetry >
      • World War Poetry >
        • WW Poem Videos
      • Our Favourite Poems
      • Inspirational Poems
      • Poetry Bank
      • The Highwayman
      • Back To School Poetry
    • Biographies
    • Older Literature >
      • Frankenstein
      • Macbeth
  • What is...?
  • Power of Music
  • Testimonials