5 Fun Thanksgiving Classroom Games

If you’re teaching about Thanksgiving or just want a fun game to play in the run-up to the holiday, try one of these Thanksgiving classroom activities. Below you’ll find five no-prep activities you can use with students of different ages and levels. All of them are free to use in your lessons. Happy Thanksgiving!

1. Thanksgiving Quiz

This first game is a Thanksgiving “What Am I?” quiz. Put students in pairs or small groups and give each group a piece of paper and a pencil to write down their answers. The quiz has ten rounds. In each round, students read three clues and then guess the Thanksgiving word. The team with the most correct answers is the winner. To make it more fun, have each group choose a Thanksgiving-themed team name before you begin. The sillier, the better!

2. Four Corner Pilgrimage

This next game is a lot of fun and a great way to get your students up out of their seats. To play, first tell students that they are all pilgrims on the way to the first Thanksgiving to get some turkey. Next, explain that in order to get there, they must sail the Mayflower ship around the four corners of the classroom. Number the corners 1, 2, 3, and 4.

All students will start at the first corner. When the teacher says “Go!”, they must meet another student and greet them with “How do you do?” Then they play rock–paper–scissors. The winner will advance to the next corner and the loser will stay at the first corner.

At each new corner, students meet another classmate, greet them, and play again. The winner continues forward and the loser stays put. Once a student wins at corner 4, they get a “turkey” (1 point) and then start again at corner 1. After 5–10 minutes, stop the game and the student with the most turkeys (points) wins.

3. Guess The Thanksgiving Food

As the name suggests, this Thanksgiving Guess the Food game has students identify different holiday foods. Show the video in class and play through the ten rounds. In each round, a picture of a Thanksgiving food is hidden behind colored shapes. As the shapes disappear, students try to guess the food before the full picture is revealed.

4. Guess The Turkey

This Thanksgiving game requires no prep, so you can play it anytime you have a few spare minutes in class. To start, choose three students to be the “turkeys” and have them come to the front of the room. All the other students should close their eyes, put their heads down on their desks, and hold one thumb up in the air.

The turkeys then walk around the classroom and each one chooses a student by gently touching their thumb. Once a student has been chosen, they lower their thumb and continue to keep their eyes closed. After the turkeys have made their selections, they return to the front of the class and the teacher tells everyone to open their eyes.

Now comes the fun part! The three students who were touched must stand up and guess which turkey chose them. If they guess correctly, they switch places with the turkey. If they guess wrong, they sit down and the turkey keeps their spot for the next round.

To make the game even more entertaining, tell the turkeys to make a gobbling sound when they choose someone. Not only does this add some humor, but it also gives the guessing students an extra clue about who picked them. This game is always a hit, and students will want to play it again and again, even after Thanksgiving is over.

5. Thanksgiving Bingo Game

This final activity is a Thanksgiving-themed bingo game. To play, download and print these bingo worksheets and give one to each student. There are nine different bingo sheets, so if you have a class of more than nine, some students will have the same card. As an alternative, you can have students cut out the pictures and arrange them into their own 3×3 bingo grid, which gives everyone a unique card.

Once all students have their bingo cards, begin calling out the Thanksgiving words. Each time you call a word, students check their sheet and cross out the picture if they have it. A student wins when they complete a line of three (across, down, or diagonal).

I hope your students enjoy playing these Thanksgiving games as much as mine do. Happy Thanksgiving!