Whale Coloring Pages

Whales are the biggest animals that have ever lived, and even on paper they seem to fill the page. These whale coloring pages show them the way whale watchers love to see them, breaching, spouting and waving their tails, along with a gentler side of cute cartoon whales for the youngest children.

The real whales come first. A humpback leaps clear of the sea, another slaps its tail with a big splash, a tail rises above calm water, and a whale leaps near a fishing boat. A mother humpback swims with her calf, a whale feeds on a cloud of krill, a sperm whale dives through sunbeams into the deep, and two whales curve together into the shape of a heart. Whales swim past a lighthouse on a rocky island, past a little island full of seagulls, under a sailboat, over a coral reef with tropical fish, through a kelp forest and alongside a school of fish, jellyfish and a sea turtle.

The cartoon whales are round and smiley: one waves a fin, one grins with its mouth wide open among bubbles, one rides a big wave, one rests on the sandy sea floor, one sleeps at the surface under the moon and one spouts water under a rainbow. The holidays bring a whale carving a jack o'lantern, one trick-or-treating in a witch hat, one topping a Christmas tree, one in a Santa hat with a present, one building a snowman, one carrying an Easter basket, one hugging a heart balloon and one balancing a birthday cake on its spout.

Amazing whale facts

• The blue whale is the largest animal ever known, bigger than any dinosaur, and its heart is about the size of a small car.
• Whales are mammals: they breathe air, feed their babies milk and are warm blooded. The spout is their breath, blown out through the blowhole on top of the head.
• Humpback whales are famous for breaching, leaping almost entirely out of the water, and for their long, complex songs.
• Many large whales eat tiny shrimp-like animals called krill, filtering them through baleen plates instead of teeth.
• A sperm whale can dive more than a kilometer deep to hunt squid.

What color is a whale?

• Blue-gray for a blue whale, lighter on the belly.
• Black or dark gray on top with a white belly and white flippers for a humpback, with a pattern on the underside of the tail that is different for every whale.
• Dark gray for a sperm whale.
• White for a beluga.

The cartoon whales look sweet in pastel blues and pinks, and the sea can range from turquoise near the surface to deep navy below.

Cute whales and ocean scenes

The simplest pages show one whale, drawn large. Quick to color, above the grid, begins with:

• Whale tail
• Moonlight
• Waving whale

The reef, the kelp forest and the jellyfish pages are full of detail. Lots of detail begins with:

• Easter basket

Whales for school

Whale pages fit an ocean or mammals unit: color the humpback, then talk about how whales breathe, why they spout and how a mother whale cares for her calf. The breaching page and the krill page pair well with a short video of real whales, and the tail page is a good start for talking about how scientists recognize individual humpbacks by the markings on their tails.

Printing

Every page is a free A4 PDF drawn at 300 dpi. A4 prints at full size, and on US Letter "fit to page" shrinks the drawing by about six percent so nothing is cut off. The printing guide shows the setting. Add to pack prints a whole pod at once. More sea life is in the octopus coloring pages, the ocean coloring pages, the shark coloring pages and the fish coloring pages.