Topics › Animals › Octopus

Octopus worksheets: eight arms, three hearts

A large reddish-orange octopus resting on rocks in an aquarium, its arms curled to show rows of pale suckers
An octopus at the New England Aquarium in Boston, showing the suckers on its arms. Photo: Betty Wills (Atsme), “Octopus in the New England Aquarium”, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

Read all about octopuses together, print a fact sheet for your child’s age, then make free quizzes and worksheets for ages 5 to 14: missing words, true or false, word matching and “Did you know?” sheets. After that, try the octopus colour by sum, the 8 times table and an octopus word search.

Ages 5–14ScienceAnimalsOceans

Print a fact sheetMake quizzes and worksheetsGet a ready-made pack

By Rich · Facts checked [TODO date]

Octopuses for kids

Octopuses are clever, soft-bodied sea animals with eight arms covered in suckers. They are molluscs, related to squid and cuttlefish, and there are about 300 kinds. An octopus has three hearts, blue blood and no bones, so it can squeeze through tiny gaps; the only hard part is its beak.

Octopuses live in every ocean, from rock pools to the deep sea. They can change colour in an instant to hide, squirt a cloud of ink to escape, and even taste things with their suckers.

Fun facts

  • Three heartsTwo pump blood through the gills and one pumps it around the body.
  • Blue bloodOctopus blood is blue because it contains copper.
  • Arms, not tentaclesScientists call an octopus’s eight limbs arms.
  • Tasting with armsThe suckers can taste what they touch.
  • Squeezy!With no bones, only the beak limits the size of gap it can fit through.
  • Coconut homesThe veined octopus carries coconut shells to hide in.
  • Escape artistsOctopuses have escaped from aquarium tanks.
  • CopycatThe mimic octopus pretends to be a lionfish or a sea snake.

Key words

suckers
round cups on the arms that grip, taste and smell
beak
the hard mouth, the only hard part of an octopus
ink
a dark cloud squirted to confuse predators
siphon
a tube that squirts water so it can move fast
mantle
the bag-like body behind the head
camouflage
changing colour and texture to blend in
invertebrate
an animal with no backbone
cephalopod
the group with octopuses, squid and cuttlefish

For older children and teens

Body and senses
  • Octopus blood uses haemocyanin, a copper-rich protein that carries oxygen well in cold water with little oxygen.
  • An octopus has about 500 million neurons, as many as a dog, and two-thirds are in its arms.
  • Skin cells called chromatophores let it change colour, and tiny muscles change its skin texture.
Behaviour and intelligence
  • Octopuses solve puzzles, find their way through mazes and remember what they learn.
  • Carrying coconut shells to build a shelter counts as tool use.
  • Some octopuses seem to recognise individual people.
Octopuses and people
  • Octopuses appear in myths, such as the kraken sea monster.
  • From 1993 the common octopus was the only invertebrate protected under UK law on animal experiments; since 2012 that covers all cephalopods.
  • Engineers study octopus arms to build soft robots that can grip and move objects.

Print the fact sheet

All the facts above on one A4 page, written for each age. Read it together, stick it on the wall, then try the quizzes below.

Choose a sheet to see it below, then print it.

Quiz time

Now check what they remember. Choose the age and the kind of sheet, roll for a fresh one, and print it with or without answers.

Make an octopus sheet

Age
Sheet

Ready-made packs

Everything for one child in one download: the fact sheet, the quizzes and the activities, with answers at the back. Printed once, ready for the week.

Teaching more than one child?The family bundle has all three packs in one file (37 pages), so everyone can do octopuses together at their own level.
Ages 5–7Years 1–2

Octopus pack, ages 5–7

  • Fact sheetbig text and a box to draw in
  • Missing wordswith a word bank
  • True or false
  • Match the wordskey words and meanings
  • Did you know?with a box to draw in
  • Octopus word searchsmall grid, across and down
  • Colour by sum: mystery octopusadding to 10, from Colour by sum

7 sheets + 5 answer pages · 12 pages

Ages 8–11Years 3–6

Octopus pack, ages 8–11

  • Fact sheetwith lines for “my favourite fact”
  • Missing wordswith a word bank
  • True or false
  • Match the wordskey words and meanings
  • Mini quizmissing words plus true or false
  • Octopus word searchmedium grid, adds diagonals
  • Colour by sum: mystery octopusthe 8 times table
  • The 8 times tableone for every arm, from Times tables

8 sheets + 7 answer pages · 15 pages

Ages 12+Secondary

Octopus pack, ages 12+

  • Fact sheetwith “going deeper” and a think question
  • Missing wordswith a word bank
  • True or false
  • Match the wordskey words and meanings
  • Think and discusstwo questions to write about
  • Octopus word searchlarge grid, any direction

6 sheets + 4 answer pages · 10 pages

The packs are on their way. Until then, you can make and print every sheet in them above. The cover shows the real fact sheet for each age.

More octopus activities

Mystery octopus: colour by sum

Maths · ages 5–11 · adding, take away or times tables

Make the sheet →

The 8 times table

One times table for every octopus arm · ages 7–9

Make the sheet →

Octopus word search

Key words · choose the size and difficulty

Make the sheet →