Shark Lesson Plans for Children

Sharks are very interesting creatures. Often they are thought of as scary. Here are some great shark activities to incorporate into your shark lesson plans.

A great activity to do for a unit on sharks is to make a shark poem. Before this activity tell your students about a bunch of different kinds of sharks and any other useful information that they think they should know. This could include where they live, what they eat, or anything else interesting. Then have each student come up with a sentence for this poem. Have each student write their sentence on the same paper. When all of your students are done writing their sentence read the poem out loud to your class.

Another great activity is called using your shark sense. Sharks have very good sense of smell. For this activity fill canisters with various smells (cinnamon, garlic, onion, ginger, honey, etc). Label them with numbers and have each of your students go through and smell the canisters and try to guess what is in them. Give them each a piece of paper with the numbers of the canisters on them. Have them write down what they think the smell of each canister is by that canisters number on the paper. Look at the paper and if a student has gotten all of the smells correctly reward them with something like a piece of candy.

A fun craft idea to do about sharks is making a Shark Hat. Using pictures of sharks or having your students draw on their own, color a big shark and cut it out. Or you can just make a fin for the head. They can use the usual markers of crayons or make it look even more awesome by gluing on glitter and sequins. Then tape or glue it to strips of paper and wrap it around their heads. This is a good activity for younger children.

A great game to play is called Sharks and Minnows. Have your students stand in a line and run from one side to another (in between boundaries). There are two sharks in the middle. They tag people as they run by. If you are tagged then you sit and try to tag people as they run by. The last student in the game is the new shark and can pick a partner to be the other shark with them.

To show your students how big some sharks can be use sidewalk chalk. Pick a shark that is really big. Then have your students walk that many feet on the sidewalk after marking where they started from. Then when they get that many feet mark that with the sidewalk chalk as well. This is a good visual for how big some sharks can be. For this activity you can even have them draw the shark in the two lines and decorate it with the sidewalk chalk. Your students will be amazed at how big some sharks can be.

By incorporating these activities into your shark lesson plans your students will have lots of fun. They will learn while doing fun games, crafts and activities. So go ahead and try these activities in your next unit all about sharks!