A Fall Feast of Fun: Three New Thanksgiving Activities for the Classroom

If you’ve been following my seasonal activity blog posts, you know I enjoy cooking up new ways to mix learning with a little holiday fun. 2023’s 11 Thanksgiving Activities for Joy and Learning was stuffed (pun intended!) with everything from trivia to breakouts. This year, I’m serving up three new additions that focus on wordplay, creativity, and seasonal spirit—perfect for keeping students engaged and energized in the days leading up to the break. Let’s take a look at what’s new for 2025.

New Additions to Peggy’s Thanksgiving Lineup

🍁 Feast of Fall Words

The Feast of Fall Words is a word-lover’s Thanksgiving treat! This Canva presentation divides 24 themed words into four categories of six: turkey, pie, thank, and the most challenging—fall. Every section contains six common words or phrases that include the anchor word.

How to play

1. Choose a section: turkey, pie, thank, or fall.
   
2. Read each clue.
   
3. Reveal the answer on the next slide to check.
   

Turkey Examples

• Clue: Very simple.
  • Answer: easy as pie
• Clue: A fun run often held on Thanksgiving
  • Answer: turkey trot
• Clue: A polite refusal.
  • Answer: no thank you
• Clue: Not meeting expectations.
  • Answer: falling short
    

Extra Tips

• Use as a bell ringer, small-group station, or quick class challenge.
• Accept reasonable variants if they are genuine phrases with the anchor word.
• Support: Offer a word bank for emerging readers or multilingual learners.

Presentation

Template

🦃 Vanishing Vowels: Thanksgiving Edition

You’ve seen my Vanishing Vowels before, and now it’s back for Thanksgiving. Each slide shows a holiday-themed word missing its vowels. Students must decode the consonants, revealing the correct spelling and image on the next slide.

This activity strengthens vocabulary, spelling, and critical thinking while keeping the festive spirit alive. It’s perfect for centers, early finishers, or warm-ups during the short Thanksgiving week.

Presentation

Template

🔗 Thanksgiving Connections

Try not one but two Thanksgiving-themed Connections games created with Flippity. Each game features 16 fall- and holiday-related words that students must sort into four groups of four based on a shared connection.

Play individually, in pairs, or as a class to spot patterns and spark lively discussions about how the words relate.
Thanksgiving Connections 1
Thanksgiving Connections 2

Extra Tip
If students enjoy this one, challenge them to create their own Connections set using Flippity or index cards for a hands-on version.

🍽️ A Second Serving of Thanksgiving Fun

Here’s a list of my other Thanksgiving-themed creations from previous years, each with a short description and direct link for easy access. For more information about these activities, check out this blog post.

Gobble Gobble Digital Breakout – a fun Thanksgiving challenge packed with surprising holiday facts and puzzles to solve as you race to break out!

Wheel of Thanksgiving – an online word-scramble spinner where players race to unscramble Thanksgiving-themed words in festive autumn style!

 Thanksgiving Story Starter – a who-what-when-where randomizer that sparks creative writing ideas with fun, school-themed Thanksgiving prompts!

Would You Rather: Thanksgiving Edition – a game where players choose between two holiday-themed options, sparking fun discussion and creative thinking.

Thanksgiving Syllacrostic –a word puzzle where players use a pool of syllables to form themed words based on clues about meaning, syllable count, and letter length.

What Does Not Belong? Thanksgiving and Fall Edition – an interactive activity where players choose which of four themed items doesn’t fit.

Thanksgiving Trivia  – a Canva presentation featuring 15 Thanksgiving trivia questions with bright fall graphics. Each question is followed by its answer.

Thanksgiving Bracket with Flippity  – access the pre-made Thanksgiving version to see which dish gets voted off the plate—or flip it to find out which food you can’t live without this Thanksgiving.

Vanishing Vowels – Fall Edition – a fall-themed activity where students decode 30 seasonal words missing their vowels, with each answer revealed alongside a matching image.

Beginner Fall Digital Breakout and Fall Is Here Digital Breakout – two fun autumn-themed digital breakouts  packed with seasonal facts and puzzles to solve as you race to break out.

If you have any questions or would like the answers for any of these activities, I’m happy to help. Just send me an email at preimers@tcea.org. I always love hearing how you’re using these Thanksgiving activities in your classroom.