Thanksgiving activities for preschoolers: games, books, songs and a week plan

These 17 Thanksgiving activities for preschoolers are grouped for planning: games, circle time, turkey crafts, a sensory bin, math and cooking. You’ll also find six picture books and three songs set to familiar tunes. The five day plan puts them together for you.

Everything works with 3 to 5 year olds, and most of it suits kindergarten too. Paper, glue, some feathers and a carton of cream. That’s about it.

Thanksgiving games for preschoolers

In November, short games work best. The room is excited. Lunch is coming. Give each game about ten minutes, then stop while the children still want more.

1. Turkey, turkey, where’s your feather?

One child sits in a chair in the middle of the circle with their eyes closed. Put a feather behind the chair. Point to another child to creep up and take the feather. They sit back down on their hands. Everyone chants “Turkey, turkey, where’s your feather? Someone took it. Can you guess who?” The turkey gets three guesses. The child with the feather takes the chair next.

2. Pass the thankful pumpkin

Sit in a circle and pass a small pumpkin while music plays. When the music stops, whoever holds the pumpkin says one thing they are thankful for. Shy children can say “pass” the first time round. They usually want a turn by the third song.

If the same few hands keep ending up with it, put the class list on the spin the wheel name picker and let the wheel choose.

3. Turkey trot freeze dance

Play something with a bounce. The children waddle and flap like turkeys. Gobbling is allowed. When the music stops, they freeze. Change the movement each round: tiptoe turkeys, giant turkeys, sleepy turkeys, turkeys in a hurry. It’s a good one for the afternoon when nobody can sit still.

4. Feather blow relay

Tape a start line and a finish line across a table. Give each child a drinking straw and a craft feather. They blow the feather from one end to the other. Then they hand the straw on. Four year olds will try to blow it with their whole body. Let them.

5. Pie tin toss

Set five aluminum pie tins on the floor and write a number from 1 to 5 inside each. Children stand behind a line and toss a bean bag into a tin. Then they count out that many counters or acorns. Paper leaves work too. Move the line back for the older children.

Circle time and thankful activities

Gratitude is a big idea for a three year old. Give it a shape: something to hold or a leaf to hang. A card to give someone works too. These do more than a talk.

6. The thankful tree

Put a bare branch in a pot or draw a trunk on butcher paper. At each morning meeting, ask one or two children what they’re thankful for. Write their words on a paper leaf while they watch, then let them hang it. By the end of November, the tree is full. And the children will “read” their leaves back to visitors, word for word.

7. A thankful wheel

Add prompts to the spin the wheel tool instead of names: a person, a food, a toy, something outside, something at school, something that makes you laugh. A child spins and answers. “What are you thankful for?” is too open for some children. These prompts give them somewhere to start.

8. Thank you cards for the people who help

With the class, list the people who help them at school. The cook, the custodian, the bus driver, the crossing guard and the front office. Each child draws a picture. Write their words underneath, then walk the cards round together. This is the activity children remember.

Turkey activities for preschoolers

For art and fine motor work, turkeys are an easy theme. Every child can make one. No two match.

9. Handprint turkeys

Paint the palm brown and each finger a different color. Press it onto paper. The thumb is the head. Once it’s dry, use a marker to add an eye and a beak. Draw the legs too. Write the child’s name and the date on the back. Parents tend to keep these.

10. Feather counting turkeys

Cut out ten brown turkey bodies and write a number from 1 to 10 on each. Children glue on the matching number of feathers. Counting practice, with an art project to show for it. For the younger group, use 1 to 5 and draw dots to match each number.

11. Paper plate turkeys with cut feathers

Draw straight and wavy lines on strips of colored paper. Children cut along the lines and glue the strips around a paper plate as the tail. Print lines from the cutting practice sheets if you want them ready to go. Most three year olds can snip along the straight lines. Four year olds can follow a wave.

12. Name tracing turkeys

Print each child’s name with the name tracing tool. Children trace their name, then glue the strip onto the turkey’s body. Name practice becomes something they want to take home.

A Thanksgiving sensory bin

Fill a bin with dried corn kernels and add small gourds, scoops, measuring cups, a funnel and a few plastic turkeys to bury. Children scoop, pour, hide and find.

Dried corn and dried beans are a choking risk for any child who still mouths things. Watch the youngest closely, or swap the corn for rolled oats or shredded orange and brown paper.

13. Find the hidden turkeys

Bury five or ten small plastic turkeys in the bin. Children dig them out and count them into an egg carton. Then they hide them for a friend.

Math and science, plus some cooking

14. The pie graph

Show pictures of pumpkin pie and apple pie, plus pecan if you want a third choice. Each child puts a sticky note with their name under the one they would pick. Count each column together. Which has the most? Which has the fewest? On Friday, bring in a small taste of the winner if your program allows food.

15. Do cranberries float?

Give each table a bowl of water and a handful of fresh cranberries. Ask them first: will they sink or float? Then drop them in. Fresh cranberries float because they have small pockets of air inside. Cut one open so the children can see them. At harvest, farmers use the same trick: flood the bog and scoop the berries off the top.

16. Butter in a jar

Pour heavy cream into a small jar with a tight lid. Fill it no more than half way. Sit in a circle and pass the jar, shaking it as hard as you can. After about five minutes, it goes thick and quiet. Keep shaking. In another five to ten minutes, a lump of butter knocks against the glass. Pour off the buttermilk and spread the butter on crackers. Check for dairy allergies first.

Put the visual timer on the board so the children can see how long they’ve been shaking.

17. Corn on the cob printing

Roll a dried or cooked cob in paint and roll it across paper. The kernels leave a bumpy pattern. Use orange, yellow and brown for a harvest picture.

Thanksgiving books for preschoolers

These six books cover Thanksgiving for preschoolers without leaning on the pilgrim story. Two are funny. Of the other four, two are about sharing a meal and two are about saying thank you. Read one a day at circle and keep the rest in the book corner for the week.

Turkey Trouble is the one they’ll ask for again. Read Bear Says Thanks just before the class feast. Bear has nothing to bring, and his friends don’t care.

Thanksgiving songs for preschoolers

The tunes are familiar; the words are new. Children can join in on day one.

Five little turkeys (to the tune of Five Little Ducks)

Five little turkeys sat on the fence. One flapped away, and that made sense! Gobble, gobble, gobble, gobble, then there were four. Hold up five fingers and fold one down each verse. In the last verse, all five come running back for dinner.

I am thankful (to the tune of Frère Jacques)

I am thankful, I am thankful, for my friends, for my friends. Thankful for my family, thankful for my family, and for school, and for school. Children swap in their own words on the second time through.

The turkey in the yard (to the tune of The Farmer in the Dell)

The turkey in the yard, the turkey in the yard, gobble gobble all day long, the turkey in the yard. In the next verse, the turkey flaps its wings. Then it shakes its tail, then takes a nap. Act out each one.

A Thanksgiving week plan you can copy

Many programs close on the Thursday and Friday of Thanksgiving week, so use this plan the week before. One theme activity a day is plenty.

• Monday: start the thankful tree at meeting. Handprint turkeys at the art table.
• Tuesday: read Turkey Trouble. Feather counting turkeys at the math table. Turkey trot freeze dance outside.
• Wednesday: cranberries at the science table. Open the sensory bin. Learn Five little turkeys.
• Thursday: make the pie graph at meeting. Butter in a jar in small groups. Paper plate turkeys.
• Friday: thank you cards and the walk round school. Class snack with your butter, then pass the thankful pumpkin.

For a printable grid, open the free preschool lesson plan template and pick the weekly layout. Type the theme into each row.

Keep the focus on thanks

There are no pilgrim hats or feather headdresses in these 17 activities. Headdresses are sacred objects for many Native nations, and dressing up as “Indians” teaches four year olds a cartoon. Many early childhood programs now keep Thanksgiving to gratitude and food, with family and the harvest around them. That’s plenty for 3 to 5 year olds. We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga, in the book list above, shows a Cherokee family giving thanks across the whole year. It’s a good way to talk about Native people as people today.

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