I’ve decided it might be useful for you, and more importantly your children, to release some of the animals and characters I have created as templates and because of the popularity of the build-a-shark craft I made recently, I decided a cute shark template would be a good choice for the first one.
They’re kind of like blank outlines which you can cut out and use as the base for loads of crafts or just as coloring pages.
I’ll be releasing more in the coming weeks so be sure to check back in regularly.
It’s up to you what you decide to do with them (there’s a few ideas below) but I just thought they’d be a useful extra resource to have available.
So here you go!
Other ocean animal templates you and your little ones may enjoy:
What Skills Can Your Children Learn And Practice?
Which skills your little ones will develop depends largely on how you plan to use this cute shark template. Here’s a few that they could improve if you decide to get all crafty with them:
- Cutting Skills – if you feel they’re ready, you can let them have a go at cutting out the template all by themselves – they’ll need to be careful and have good scissor control if they want to cut out the template neatly
- Fine Motor Skills – if they’re going to use the shark template as a base for a collage, they’ll need to use their pincer grip to pick up the pieces and carefully put them where they want them to go
- Creativity – as the template is basically a blank canvas, your children will have a lot of space to exercise their creativity and decide how they want to personalize it
- Hand-eye coordination – to be able to understand what they are seeing and get their hands to go where they want them to go
- Hand and finger strength – the ability to be able to apply enough pressure to make marks on the page and hold the pencil firmly
- Pencil Control – they can practice their pencil control and develop hand strength through coloring this template in
This cute shark template will also give them a chance to practice their concentration and perseverance skills as they may find it tricky to make their creation look exactly as they want it to and may be practising skills they are not completely confident with.
How To Prepare This shark Template
First you’re going to want to download the shark template by clicking on the download box at the bottom of the page.
Materials you may need:
- Safety scissors
- Card Stock or Craft Paper
- Glue
- Some coloring pencils or pens
Once you’ve downloaded the template, you’ll need to print it off onto paper or card depending on what you plan on using it for.
After that you’re all done!
Let your children’s creativity run (or swim) wild!
A Couple Ideas For The Shark Template to Get The Creative Juices Flowing
I expect you have an idea how you’d like to use this shark template, but why stop at just one idea? You can print out as many copies as you like so here’s a few extra ideas:
Coloring
You can obviously just give your kids the cute shark template and let them use it as a coloring page.
It’s good to just let them experiment sometimes and marvel at what they can create.
Sometimes though, it might be nice to give them a few ideas. Can they make their shark spotty? How about a stripy shark or a lovely patchwork one?
So now they’ve colored in the shark and they’re looking amazing! How about adding in their own background? Maybe have a look at some ocean scenes in a book or online for inspiration and to teach them some researching skills.
They could add some seaweed to the foreground or how about some coral? Maybe the shark could be chasing fish – looking for his next tasty meal!
Give them a blank piece of paper and see if they can use them as inspiration and make their own scene. Maybe they could draw a little shark family, complete with mommy, daddy and baby shark?
Or forget the pencils and crayons altogether and crack out the paints and let them practice brush control while carefully painting them. You can make some really nice backgrounds by mixing a few water colors.
Crafts
They could also use the shark template as the base for for crafts.
They’d be great to do some collaging with. Just rip up some tissue or colored paper, get out the glue and get sticking.
You could also add pompoms, pipe cleaners, and googly eyes. Or you could go outside and scavenge some natural materials. Sticks, grass and leaves could all be used to make an awesome underwater background!
If you print the shark 4 to a page and cut them out after they have colored / decorated them, you could them stick them onto a background they have made on card to make their very own underwater scene. I’ll be making more templates in the future so they could use those and have loads of underwater creatures.
There’s so much you could do with them so let them get creative and have fun!
You could also use the shark template as a base for a greeting card – decorate the front and write on the back or print it our twice and stick them together to create a card which stands up.
Whatever you do with them, have fun and I’d love to see what your little ones create!
