A storyboard is a story telling device used to visually “sketch out” the actions of a story that are told in a visual medium like animation, pictures, or felt pieces.

In this activity, students participated in a discussion about the book, The Rainbow Fish, by Eric Carle. In the story, the rainbow fish is asked to share his beautiful scales with his friends. At first, he hesitates, until he realizes that sharing makes him feel good. As the story progresses, he begins to lose more and more of his scales.

By using a story board, students explore aspects of a story they may not have noticed while reading it, such as how it develops, what’s missing, the use of language, how words and pictures work together, and what the story means to them. To do this, we laid down on our stomachs in a circle.

As the story was read, students took one shiny scale from a large diagram of the rainbow fish. They conclude with a discussion of why sharing is so important, and how we can be better friends to our classmates.