Rainbow Fish First Week of School Activities

You’ve almost made it through your first week of teaching kindergarten. Congratulations! The first week is always an exciting, exhausting, and incredibly rewarding time. By Friday, you’ve spent days helping your new students learn classroom rules, routines, and expectations, and you’ve probably answered a thousand questions about snack time, pencil sharpening, and who gets to sit by whom.

Now it’s time to end the week on a positive and memorable note with a beloved classroom favorite: The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister. This timeless story is perfect for teaching young learners about friendship, kindness, and the joy of sharing.

Below, I’m sharing an example of how you might structure your day around The Rainbow Fish, while continuing to reinforce your daily routines and expectations.

Friday Schedule: The Rainbow Fish Theme

8:00 am – Arrival and Morning Work
Start your morning just like you have all week by reviewing arrival procedures. Routine and repetition are key to helping your students feel confident and independent as they come in each morning.

For today’s morning work, continue building fine motor skills with a scissor activity. Students can cut along simple lines to strengthen their hand-eye coordination and scissor control. If you’ve been using a progression of fine motor activities throughout the week, this is a great time to see how much they’ve already improved!

8:30 am – Calendar and Class Rules
Transition into your calendar time. Review days of the week, months, and the weather. Then, take a few minutes to discuss your final classroom rule for the week. Reinforcing rules through discussion, modeling, and visual cues helps ensure they stick. You can also have students color a corresponding coloring page that ties into your classroom rule theme. This provides a quiet, calming transition before moving into the next part of the day.

9:00 am – Teach or Review Routines
By Friday, you’ve probably covered most of your major routines, but there are always a few small ones that may need revisiting. Check your procedures list (I always keep mine on my desk for the first couple of weeks) and choose one or two areas to focus on. Perhaps students still require a reminder on how to line up quietly, how to rotate through centers, or how to clean up materials efficiently.

Every class is different. Some years, I feel like I spend all week practicing how to walk in a straight line, while other groups need more help remembering to push in their chairs or transition quietly. The key is to keep modeling and practicing; it pays off in the long run!

9:30 am – Assessment: Shape Match-Up
Keep assessments light and simple during the first week. A shape-matching activity is an easy way to gauge your students’ understanding of basic shapes while providing them with a hands-on task that feels more like play than a test.

9:55 am – Routines Review
Choose one more routine to practice or reteach before heading to recess. Short, targeted review sessions like this help prevent minor problems from developing into major habits later.

10:00 am – Recess
Everyone’s favorite time! Fresh air and movement are essential for your little learners after a morning of routines and practice.

10:15 am – Routines Check-In
After recess, briefly review playground safety and indoor behavior expectations. Then, choose another routine from your list to practice, maybe your end-of-recess transition or how to get drinks calmly before returning to class.

10:25 am – Language Arts: The Rainbow Fish
Now it’s story time! Gather your students on the carpet and read The Rainbow Fish. Pause occasionally to ask guiding questions:

• How did the Rainbow Fish feel at the beginning of the story?
• What made him change his mind about sharing?
• How do you feel when you share with friends?

After the discussion, complete a sight word match-up activity tied to the story. It’s a simple way to begin reinforcing early literacy skills while connecting to a meaningful text.

10:50 am – Quick Routine Review
Take a few minutes to reset before moving on to math. Choose a routine that may require some extra attention, such as transitions, quiet signals, or table clean-up, and practice it together.

11:00 am – Math: Counting and Number Recognition
Use counting games, number songs, or hands-on manipulatives to review number recognition. Early in the year, your goal is to make math feel fun and accessible for every student.

11:20 am – Art: Celery Stick Rainbow Fish
Now for the highlight of the day — your Rainbow Fish art project! Using celery sticks dipped in paint, students can stamp colorful fish scales onto their paper fish cutouts. The texture from the celery makes the artwork pop, and the stamping motion is another great fine motor activity.

You can find step-by-step instructions and a link to this adorable project here:
Celery Stamp Rainbow Fish

11:40 am – End-of-Day Routines
As you wrap up the day, review the expectations for cleanliness and packing up. Review your dismissal procedure and ensure everyone knows what to do at the end of each day.

11:50 am – Clean-Up and Pack-Up
Encourage students to take ownership of their space and materials — a little structure here saves a lot of time later in the year!

12:00 pm – Dismissal

Wrapping Up the Week

By the end of the first week, your students will have learned a great deal about routines, rules, and how to be part of a classroom community. Ending the week with The Rainbow Fish helps reinforce kindness, sharing, and empathy, the foundation of every great classroom.

If you’d like to download the Rainbow Fish activities mentioned in this post, just fill out the form below!

And don’t forget to check out the rest of my First Week of Kindergarten series for more themed days and free resources:

• Monday – The Kissing Hand
• Tuesday – Lacey Walker Non-Stop Talker
• Wednesday – Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
• Thursday – Brown Bear Brown Bear What Do You See?
• Friday – The Rainbow Fish

These activities are designed to make your first week smooth, structured, and full of joy, setting you and your students up for a wonderful year ahead! Check out these other back-to-school resources that can help make planning a breeze!