Fish

Fish come in all shapes, colors, and sizes. They are some of the most diverse animals that live in the sea.

Fish lived on earth before dinosaurs. They are one of the oldest groups of animals. Fish are cold-blooded vertebrates (have a backbone). All fish have gills which absorb oxygen from the water into the bloodstream. All fish have fins and most have scales which protect their body.

What is a Fish? - PDF file

Fish Mini Book - PDF file

agnathas (jawless fish)

lamprey and hagfish

These are one of the earliest fish. They are very primitive. A lamprey attaches itself to the outside of another fish with its mouth which is a sucking disc ringed with sharp teeth. The lamprey cuts a hole though another fish's skin and sucks blood and body fluids out of the prey. Lampreys are considered to be parasitic fish. They have gill slits and do not have a swim bladder like bony fish.

chondrichthyes (cartilaginous fish)

shark, stingray, skate

Click on the skate to learn more about cartilaginous fish

These fish have no bones. Instead, they have a skeleton made of cartilage. They have gill slits rather than an operculum. They do not have a swim bladder. The liver on a shark is very large and thought help give the fish buoyancy. Sharks, skates and rays do not have anal fins.

osteichthyes (bony fish)

American eel, puffer fish, sea robin, flounder, seahorse

Click on the flounder to learn more about bony fish

These fish are the most common fish. They have a skeleton of bone, scales, paired fins, one pair of gill openings jaws, and paired nostrils. Bony fish have swim bladders which they use to dive and come up to the surface. Their gills are covered by a hard outer flap called an operculum. Bony fish have swim bladders which help them stay afloat. By changing the amount of air in the bladder, the fish stays balanced in the water.

Fish Activities

After looking at specimens and reading about strange and weird fish, we play fish bingo. I have made bingo cards with the pictures of about 24 different kinds of fish. We use goldfish crackers as our markers.

Click here to get fish bingo pictures

Blank bingo card for Fish Bingo - PDF file

I do several activities with fish. We design our own fish, draw them out on large pieces of white bulletin board paper and then stuff them. Then we hang them from the ceiling. Each student gives the fish a name and talks about the adaptations they have given their fish. As a creative writing activity they must write a descriptive paragraph of their fish which not only includes a physical description of the fish and its adaptations, but includes information about habitat, diet, and life cycle.

Fashion a Fish Activity - word file

	Get fresh fish from the fish market and make prints from the fish. You use a brayer to coat the fish with black paint and then place a sheet of newsprint over the fish and press evenly all over. You can also use this method to make fish t-shirts.
	Have the students draw and color pictures of different types of fish. Cut them out and put them on a bulletin board. Cover the bulletin board with blue food wrap or cellophane. Put one layer across the top and as you go down the board make more layers of the blue wrap so that the color deepens as it does in the ocean.
	Make a Porthole from two styrofoam plates. Have the children draw and color fish. Cut them out. Glue the fish and plants onto the inside of one of the plates.. Glue sand below the fish and let it dry. Cut a large hole in the center of the second plate. Tape blue cellophane to the inside of the place. Glue or staple the two plates together. Look through the "porthole" to see the ocean scene.
	Fish camouflage activity - How To Hide in the Ocean
	Dissect spiny dogfish sharks and perch (bony) which are available from Carolina Biological Supply. Compare the anatomy of the two types of fish.

Fish worksheets for you to download.

All of these files are PDF and Microsoft Word files which I created for use with this unit. You will need the latest version of Acrobat Reader to view the PDF files. Click on the box to get the latest version.