This fun paper shark craft for kids can be just for fun, or it can be used to help your students learn the parts of a shark and their function. It’s easy to prepare and easy to do – all you need is paper, a glue stick, some scissors, and the free printable, and you are ready to roll! It’s a low mess and low stress paper craft for kids – perfect for summer!
Materials Needed for the Pop-Up Shark Paper Craft for Kids
- Shark printable (below)
- One sheet of gray cardstock
- One sheet of white cardstock
- One sheet of blue cardstock
- One sheet of green cardstock
- Glue stick or white glue
- Black pen
*Note: You can also use construction paper instead of card stock – just trace the pattern onto the construction paper instead of printing it on. Card stock is a little more durable and easy to work with, however.
Instructions for the Pop-Up Shark Paper Craft for Kids:
- Print the Shark printable – you can either print it on plain paper and use it as a pattern to trace onto cardstock, print it on plain paper and have your child color it, or print one copy onto gray cardstock and one onto white. NOTE: the only part of the shark that is white is the belly. The rest of the parts are gray.
- Cut out the pieces
- To assemble the shark, glue the top of the body to the belly. Glue the caudal fin to the end of the tail with the tail on top and fin underneath Glue the dorsal fin to the top, and the pectoral fin to the center. The second dorsal fin, pelvic fin, and anal fin can be glued to the back side of the shark’s body. See the photo for placement.
- Once your shark is assembled, draw on gills (sharks usually have 5-7 gills) and an eye.
- You can now glue the shark to the background. To do this, fold the blue cardstock in half. Cut two parallel slits from the folded edge to about 3/4 of the way to the opposite edge. Open the paper and bend the cut slit to the inside. You can now glue your shark on the popped out slit.
- (Optional) If you want to add some details to finish off your project, cut strips of sea grass from the green card stock. Bend about a centimeter from the bottom of each piece of sea grass and glue the bent part to the bottom of the paper.
Use the Pop-Up Shark Paper Craft for Kids as an Educational Activity
You can make the pop-up shark paper craft for kids just for fun, or use it as a hands-on science activity for learning about sharks!
- To use your pop-up shark paper craft for kids as an educational activity, talk about the parts of the shark as you are assembling it. Below is information you can use as you are doing this – feel free to add onto it!
- The shark has a light underbelly and a darker top – can you guess why? It is for camouflage! If a shark is swimming above its prey, the the light underbelly will blend in with the sunlight coming into the water from the vantage point of looking up into the sky. If the prey is swimming above the shark, the dark back of the shark blends in to the dark water.
- All the fins of the shark do different things to help the shark swim. The caudal fin moves side to side to propel the shark forward. The dorsal fins help the shark to stay upright in the water and not roll like a barrel. The pectoral fins help the shark steer and move up and down in the water. The pelvic fins and anal fin help provide stability.
- And of course, the gills help the shark to breathe by absorbing oxygen from the water.
I hope you enjoyed making this pop-up shark paper craft for kids! Thanks for visiting!
Feel free to check out more fun crafts for kids!
