🎓 7 Fun (and Free) Thanksgiving Activities That Your Students Will Love!

What’s Inside This Week:

• The Big Picture: 7 Free (& Fun) Thanksgiving Classroom Activities

• Classroom Hack: Enhance your Classroom’s Organization

• Connecting the Dots: Links to my Favorite Educational Highlights from this Week

Happy Tuesday,

I hope your week is off to a fantastic start! In this weeks edition of The Thinking Cap, we’re diving into the festive spirit of Thanksgiving with some fun and educational classroom activities. Thanksgiving is not just a time for gratitude and reflection, but also an excellent opportunity to bring unique, engaging activities into your classroom.

Continue reading below for 7 Thanksgiving activities that are guaranteed to engage your students and add a bit of joy to your week. These carefully selected activities are designed to suit a range of interests and skill levels, making your classroom the place to be this Thanksgiving week!

-Brandon

🏆 7 Free (& Fun) Thanksgiving Activities Your Students Will Love

1. Create Your Own Thanksgiving Budget

Dive into a math lesson where students craft and budget for their perfect Thanksgiving feast!

They'll design menus and price dishes online, honing math skills through real-world budgeting and planning. It's a creative, number-filled journey into the spirit of Thanksgiving! (Link)

2. Thanksgiving Writing Prompts

Gratitude isn’t just for Language Arts class and these writing prompts are a great way to incorporate writing into all subjects.

Try these 5 writing prompts to see your students express thankfulness and gratitude. This activity will surely bring out the best in your students and add warm holiday vibe to your classroom! (Link)

3. Thanksgiving Crossword Puzzle

Perfect for various grade levels, this crossword puzzle mixes fun and brainpower. To make the crossword puzzle easier and more fun, you may want to include a word bank or give students access to the internet.

This is a great way to fill a spare 10-15 minutes towards the end of the week… I may, or may not, be speaking from personal experience. (Link)

4. Make a Thanksgiving Bookmark using Arts & Crafts

Are you one of those teachers that loves doing Arts & Crafts whenever you have an excuse to? Then this is your activity.

These adorable and practical bookmarks are perfect for readers in grades 5 through 8. With just a few materials, watch your students create these charming turkey companions for their books. (Link)

5. Thanksgiving Jeopardy!

Who doesn’t love Jeopardy? This classic game is the perfect way to add a spark of Thanksgiving joy to your classroom.

All you need to do is divide your students into teams, fire up the list of exciting questions, and you're all set.

I love that the activity is right in the web browser and all you have to do is say how many teams you need and click ‘Start.’ (Link)

6. Tons of Free Thanksgiving Coloring Pages

Use these coloring pages to decorate your classroom or bulletin board. I am a huge fan of updating my classroom decor with student work centered around holidays.

This website makes it easy to scroll, select, and print your favorite designs with just a click. Have the students cut them out to display in your room, or let them take them home to put on the fridge. (Link)

7. Interactive Group M&M’s Activity

Many families share what they are grateful for at Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a tradition that you can bring into your classroom through this fun activity.

This gratitude activity uses fun-sized M&M packets and has students answer and share what they’re grateful for based on the color of their M&M. You’ll have to grab M&M’s, but the activity makes it work it. (Link)

✏️ Steal this Classroom Hack:

• Colorful Masking Tape

• Black & Colorful Dry Erase Tape

• Wall File Organizer

• Over the Door File Organizer

• Paper Trays

👍 Why I love this hack:

This week's ‘Classroom Hack’ spotlights a brilliantly organized classroom calendar. I love calendar for its vibrant colors and clear, easy-to-read format, which helps students stay on track with important dates and deadlines.

The vertical wall folders create a great way to maximize classroom space. They are labeled by the day of the week and are a smart organizational hack, letting students easily grab missed handouts. And incorporating desk trays for daily papers keeps everything tidy and accessible.

This practical classroom organization is a perfect example of how classroom decor can double as a functional tool to enhance learning.

✅ Have a classroom hack that you would like to share? Reply to this email and let me know what awesome hack you’ve created. (I can even include it in next weeks newsletter - with a shout out, of course!)

📚 Highlights from this Week:

• What Really Happened at Thanksgiving?: An animated summary that provides historical background information on both the Pilgrims and Native Americans in the context of Thanksgiving. (Link)

• Lost at School: Lost at School provides a transformative approach for educators and parents to address challenging classroom behaviors through understanding, communication, and relationship-building with at-risk students. (Link)

• Secrets of Mental Math: Secrets of Mental Math is a guide to mastering rapid mental calculations and number tricks, making math fun and accessible for anyone regardless of age or skill level. (Link)

• Mathcation: Use code 5Dollars on a Monthly Membership to get your first month for just $5! (Link)

Thank you for reading The Thinking Cap!

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