About these shark coloring pages
Shark coloring pages are a hit with every child who has ever pressed their nose to an aquarium tank. Sharks are sleek, powerful and a little mysterious, and kids love learning that they come in so many shapes: the hammerhead with its wide head, the spotted whale shark, the striped tiger shark and tiny sharks that would fit in your hand. Our free shark pages show friendly, smiling sharks with thick lines for toddlers, sharks with reef fish and bubbles for preschoolers, and detailed underwater scenes for older kids and adults.
Every page is a free printable for US Letter or A4, with no account and no watermark, and you can color any of them online with a tap-to-fill brush. Our sharks are drawn to be fun, not scary, so they suit even young children, and there is plenty to talk about while you color: how sharks breathe, why they lose so many teeth and how long they have lived in the oceans.
Why kids love coloring sharks
Sharks have a simple, bold outline that is easy to recognize and easy to color: a pointed nose, a fin on top, a tail shaped like a crescent. Even a toddler can fill one with grey or blue and add a white belly, and the result looks right straight away.
For older children, sharks are a door into ocean science. They can compare the shark that eats tiny plankton with the one that hunts fish, learn that a shark skeleton is made of cartilage like our ears, and find out that sharks were swimming in the sea long before the first dinosaurs.
Shark types you will find on our pages
Each kind of shark has a feature that makes it easy to spot, and copying that feature is the key to a page that looks right.
There are more than 500 kinds of shark, so these are only a start. Older kids can pick a shark they read about, look up a photo and see how close they can get with their pencils.
- Great white: a grey back, a white belly and a pointed snout
- Hammerhead: a wide, flat head with an eye at each end
- Whale shark: dark grey-blue with white spots and stripes, and a wide mouth
- Tiger shark: dark stripes on its sides, which fade as it grows older
- Nurse shark: brown, with whisker-like barbels near its mouth, often resting on the sea floor
Shark facts to share while you color
- Sharks have lived in the oceans for more than 400 million years, long before the dinosaurs.
- A shark's skeleton is made of cartilage, the same bendy material as the tip of your nose, not bone.
- Sharks lose teeth all the time and grow new ones in rows behind them, so many sharks go through thousands of teeth in a lifetime.
- The whale shark is the largest fish in the world, and it eats tiny plankton and small fish, not big animals.
- Some of the smallest sharks, like the dwarf lanternshark, are only about 20 cm (8 inches) long.
- Shark skin is covered in tiny tooth-like scales called denticles, which make it feel rough like sandpaper.
- Sharks can sense the tiny electric signals that other animals give off, using special pores on their snouts.
- Some sharks must keep swimming to push water over their gills, while others, like nurse sharks, can rest on the sea floor.
Which shark page for which age
- Toddlers (2–3)
- Easy pages with one big, smiling shark and thick lines. Grey or blue for the body and white for the belly is all they need.
- Preschool (3–5)
- A shark with a few fish, bubbles or a starfish. Count the fins and teeth together and name the colors.
- Kids (5–10)
- Hammerheads, whale sharks and reef scenes. A good page to learn the different kinds of shark and their markings.
- Teens and adults
- Detailed shark pages with textured skin, coral and light rays through the water, made for shading and blending blues.
Coloring tips and color ideas
- Use countershading like real sharks: a darker grey or blue on top and a white or very light belly underneath.
- Draw the line between the dark back and light belly as a soft wave, not a straight line, for a natural look.
- Whale sharks look best with a dark blue body and the white spots left uncolored.
- Color the water around the shark in a lighter blue so its darker back stands out.
- Add a few pale yellow light rays from the surface for an underwater glow.
- Keep the teeth white and the eyes black with a tiny white dot so the shark looks friendly, not fierce.
Ideas for home, school and parties
- Aquarium trip: print the sharks in the tank you are going to see and compare your colored pages with the real animals.
- Classroom: color a shark, label its fins, gills and tail, and write one fact about it underneath.
- Shark-themed birthday party: a coloring table with blue paper and a page for every guest, then a wall of finished sharks.
- Make a shark field guide: color five different sharks, write each name and staple them into a little book.
- Turn a photo of your child into a shark-diver page: upload it and Coloriki makes a coloring page of them swimming with a friendly shark.
How to print shark coloring pages
- Open the page you like and press Print it. A PDF opens, sized for US Letter; the A4 PDF is next to it.
- In the print window choose "Fit to page" or 100% scale, and plain white paper. Thicker paper (100 to 120 gsm) is better for markers and paint.
- Print a few copies: kids like to try different colors on the same picture.
- Prefer screens? Press Color it online and color with a tap on a phone, tablet or computer.