Thanksgiving Themed Activities and Centers for Preschool, Pre-K, and Kindergarten

It’s turkey time and that means Thanksgiving themed centers for your classroom! Check out how I engage my students in hands on Thanksgiving themed learning activities. Make learning so much fun, they don’t even realize they are doing work. Don’t forget to grab your FREE Thankful placemat later in the post.

Thanksgiving dinner, yes please! Grab some grocery store ads and cut them into manageable pieces (I cut mine on the folds).Students cut yummy items from the ads and glue to their plate. If your students are struggling, draw a black line around the object. Don’t forget to put an empty tub on the table for trash.

When I think of Thanksgiving, I think of pie. Create a pie making play dough tray. I put out small pie pans, small pie servers, apple counters, pear counters, a rolling pin, pizza cutters, and a spice jar (with red pom poms inside) with the play dough. This play dough tray will build students’ fine motor muscles, eye hand coordination, and imagination. It would be a fun activity to do after you read There was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie.

Corn painting is the perfect open end art activity for Thanksgiving. Look at the beautiful prints the corn makes.

Add Thanksgiving themed writing paper and vocabulary cards to your writing center. I also added fall colored dot markers and fall stickers to the center.

Thanksgiving books for the bookshelf. You can see my favorite Thanksgiving book list HERE.

Thanksgiving time gives us an opportunity to talk about being thankful. What is looks like, what it feels like, what we are thankful for, and how we can show other we are thankful. Students colored mini I am Thankful books after we read The Thankful Book by Todd Parr. This is included in my I Am Thankful pack in my TPT store.

Each student made their own thankful turkey craft. On each feather they wrote and drew things they were thankful for. This is included in my I Am Thankful pack too.

Do you do a Thanksgiving celebration in your classroom? Grab these thankful placemats HERE or click the picture. Students can draw what they are thankful for in the middle and write it on the line at the top.

I hid these Thanksgiving letter puzzles in my sensory bin. Students matched the uppercase and lowercase letters to create the picture. Hiding puzzle pieces or game pieces in a sensory bin is calming and students can use their senses. This is included in my Thanksgiving Centers.

Beginning sound and letter match up turkey style. I put some corn kernels in a tub then added the letter feathers, sound feathers, and magnet letters. I even threw in some magnet letters that didn’t match! This is included in my Thanksgiving Centers.

I try to integrate sensory into different activities as the weather changes and we have to stay inside more. Those yucky days when students can go outside can be tough.

Students clapped the number of syllables in various foods and placed them onto the corresponding plate. Add more movement and have students JUMP the syllables. Trust me, it is a ton of fun! This is included in my Thanksgiving Centers.

One of my favorite Thanksgiving books is 10 Fat Turkeys. It is a cute story plus, I can use it to teach rhyme and informal subtraction! I drew a line on the board for the fence and placed the 10 turkeys on it. Students helped me put the numbers above the turkeys in order and now we are identifying numbers too! As I read, the students take the turkeys off one by one. This is included in my Thanksgiving Centers.

Bulletin boards are not my favorite thing. I always try to make the bulletin boards in and outside of my classroom filled with student work. This turkey has to be the cutest bulletin board I have ever made.

I cut long ovals for the feathers. Students painted an AB pattern on each feather. Students also helped me paint the circle turkey body and head. Once everything was dry I assembled the turkey and added the eyes, beak, and feet.

Writing numbers on paper is boring. So why not write numbers in corn! Students pick a number card, write the number in the corn, and count out the corresponding number of pom poms to fill the ten frames. Students are developing one to one correspondence, identifying number, writing numbers, and developing fine motor skills in this activity. This is included in my Thanksgiving Centers.

Yes two play dough trays for this theme! For this turkey play dough tray, you will need brown play dough, feathers, eyes, beads, and orange pipe cleaners. I had a turkey cookie cutter so I added it to the tray too. Students sculpt a turkey body with the play dough and add other items to create their turkey. If you add dice, students can roll the dice and count out the corresponding number of feathers.

Love the activities? Grab my Thanksgiving Math and Literacy Centers for 11 Thanksgiving themed centers. Just print and prep.

Grab my in my I Am Thankful pack in my TPT store for even more activities and charts all about being thankful.

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