Thanksgiving Activities for Students

Thanksgiving is next week and if you are like me, this holiday has crept up on you and you might not be ready. If you are still trying to come up with some activities for your students, you might want to take a look at this post from last year. It is full of resources and ideas that can be modified for a variety of grade levels.

If none of those activities are exactly what you are looking for then here are some additional ideas.

Use Flipgrid to have students take a moment to reflect on the last year and share what they are most thankful for.

Pilgrims, the Mayflower Compact, and Thanksgiving- Three lessons for students in grades 6-10 that examine the voyage of the Mayflower, the Mayflower Compact, and Thanksgiving.

Black Friday Financial Literacy is a two-day lesson that helps students explore comparison shopping and using a credit card.

Thanksgiving: Census Facts is a website that is packed with a variety of facts about Thanksgiving.

Students can create a digital poster using Google Slides or Google Drawings where they share their pictures that represent Thanksgiving traditions in their homes. They can share pictures of foods they eat and activities that take place.

Students can compose a rap song using Incredibox.

Have students research Thanksgiving and come up with two truths and a lie. They can get creative and make a poster with their information. Once everyone is finished, go around the room and have students try to guess which information is factual and which information is a lie.

The First Thanksgiving Fact or Myth? - An Interactive Historical Investigation

U.S. Thanksgiving is just around the corner. If you're teaching lessons about The First Thanksgiving, the Plimoth Plantation website has some resources that you will want to check out.

You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving is an interactive exploration of the facts and myths associated with the story of the First Thanksgiving. Students can explore the facts and myths through the eyes of a Native American child or through the eyes of a female Pilgrim. Through the eyes of each character students discover the culture of giving thanks in the Native American and English cultures. My favorite part of the investigation is "The Path to 1621" in which students hear the perspectives of Native Americans and Pligrims about events prior to 1621.

Applications for Education
Plimoth Plantation has an extensive teaching guide that accompanies You Are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving. The teaching guide includes the use primary source documents in addition to the text in the interactive investigation. To make the activity accessible to as many classrooms as possible Plimoth Plantation allows you to download the files to run the activity locally. You can download the activity here (the link will start a zip file download).

I learned about this great interactive exploration from a pre-service teacher participating in one of my workshops in Missoula, Montana last month.