Ready-to-Use Thanksgiving Activities

Sandwiched between Halloween and Christmas, Thanksgiving seems to miss out on the glory of the end-of-year holidays. Even in the retail world, stores go from trick-or-treat candy and the spooky-ooky to the glittery red and green of Christmas. We are barely into November, and Christmas music is playing in the stores! I mean, wow! I just gotta feel for the fourth Thursday of every November. Yes, I am that one who always roots for the underdog. So what about Thanksgiving activities?

As you can probably tell, I do like Thanksgiving. This time of year gives me a chance to pause and really count my blessings. I am extremely thankful for my job at TCEA, the wonderful people in my work family, my home, and my good health.

If you are looking for ways to celebrate Thanksgiving at school or around your own dinner table, please check out these freshly minted activities to honor the “underdog” of the holiday season.

Would You Rather Thanksgiving Activity

Would you rather? Thanksgiving activities

This Canva presentation can be played in presentation mode right from your browser. You are also welcome to edit this template of the presentation to customize it for your particular audience. Like all the other Would You Rather games, it can be played in several ways. As the teacher, you can decide, and there are no wrong answers!

What Does Not Belong? Thanksgiving and Fall Edition

Which one doesn't belong? Thanksgiving activities

I also set up this Canva presentation as a ready-to-go activity for your use, and you can modify the template to suit your needs. Each slide has four options, and the participant decides which doesn’t belong. There isn’t just one correct answer for most, and it’s interesting to hear what object students pick and why. Have your students give their reason, and cheers to lively discussions!

The Giving Thanks Word Wall

‘Tis the season for gratitude and thankfulness. My colleague Diana Benner writes in her blog, “Gratitude Activities for Your Classroom,”

“Gratitude is defined as the feeling or expression of thankfulness and appreciation toward yourself, others, people, places, or things.”

Make a copy of my Giving Thanks slide deck and use this activity as a simple way to express thankfulness. Just assign each student a slide, and they can add their words of Thanksgiving with text boxes. I would save changing the font until their list of words is complete (because you and I know how choosing fonts is so much FUN!).

Thanksgiving Syllacrostic

I discovered the “old school” PennyPress Variety puzzle books about a year ago. I find that working on puzzles helps me unwind, and on a long airplane ride, it helps pass the time. I discovered my new favorite type of puzzle: the syllacrostic.

If you’re not familiar with this type of puzzle, read on.

Basically, there is a pool of syllables in a box. The puzzle usually has 15 to 20 words to solve. You are given three pieces of information for each word:

A related word or phrase
The number of syllables in the word
The number of letters for each word

Since they have become my favorite type of puzzle, I have tried my hand at developing a Thanksgiving syllacrostic. Drop a note in the comment section, and let me know what you think.

More Thanksgiving Activities

If you are looking for more digital Thanksgiving activities, please check out my other Thanksgiving blog article. These activities might have been created two years ago, but I must say, they have withstood the test of holiday activity time.

Here’s a quick list of what you will find. :