Are you looking for Thanksgiving preschool activities to enjoy with your little ones this November? This post has 10 fun and easy ideas to do with toddlers, preschoolers or even Kindergarten students to go with your Thanksgiving theme! Read on for lots of Thanksgiving fun!
Are you a preschool teacher? Class books are one of my favorite tools for writing workshop time. They really help preschool and Kindergarten students get excited about learning to read and write. I’ve put together a set of my favorite printable class books totally free for you! These class books can be used throughout the school year and focus on skills like letter and number recognition, sight words, environmental print, and more! I know you’ll love writing and creating these books with your students!
It’s that time of year again! Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and it’s time to start thinking about how you’ll be celebrating with the toddlers and preschoolers in your life. I’ve compiled a list of my favorite preschool activities for you to enjoy this Thanksgiving season at home or in the classroom. So, whether you’re looking for things like arts & crafts or cooking projects, we have something to fit everyone’s needs. Happy Thanksgiving!
Turkey Crafts for Kids
What is Thanksgiving without a turkey craft? There are so many adorable turkey crafts for kids out there! There are a few of my favorites to make!
How to Cook a Turkey Craft and Writing
Students will love creating this simple turkey craft and pairing it with their own directions on how to cook a turkey! This is an adorable activity to display at a preschool Thanksgiving feast, seasonal bulletin board or send it home for parents to enjoy reading! You can read more in this post, Preschool How to Cook a Turkey Writing Template and Craft.
Tissue Paper Turkey Craft
These tissue paper turkeys are so easy to make and make a great writing topper! Here is what you need to make them:
- A paper plate (the cheap paper ones work best)
- Tissue paper (I love buying tissue paper squares already cut)
- Construction Paper
- Glue
- Google Eyes
- Cut a paper plate in half and have your little ones cover the whole thing with glue and tissue paper squares. This is a great fine motor skill activity too!
- Using construction paper cut out a head and a beak to glue in the middle of the plate.
- You can add the turkey craft to the top of a writing page or display it on it’s own!
Water Bottle Turkey
This water bottle turkey craft is a fun one for toddlers especially! Just print and color the turkey face (from November Toddler Activities) and add colored feathers! They can also fill the water bottle with pom poms!
Thanksgiving Books for Preschool
I love reading seasonal books with preschool students! These Thanksgivings books can be enjoyed together as a whole class or added to a library! Here are a few of my favorites!
Thanksgiving Preschool Clip Cards
Clip cards are a simple activity for preschool students because you just need clothespins! These Thanksgiving Preschool Visual Discrimination Cards are perfect for literacy and math centers! Students will just simply clip the clothespin to the letter or number that matches.
Visual discrimination is an important pre-reading skill for preschoolers and these Thanksgiving Visual Discrimination Cards focused on uppercase letters, lowercase letters, and numbers 0-20 will help little ones practice this skill. This set includes over 70 printable visual discrimination cards.
Make a Thanksgiving Class Book
I absolutely love creating class books with my students! Thanksgiving is a great time to create a class book with your little ones. Each student will contribute a page, then you put them together to create a whole book that can be enjoyed by the class! All of the Thanksgiving Class Books shown below are available in my Teachers Pay Teachers Store.
Any of these book pages could also be sent home with your students and completed with your families for a preschool family project and then put together as a class book or even displayed in the hallway first!
Thanksgiving Dinner Class Book
This class book is called, Thanksgiving Dinner and on each page students will draw a food to eat for Thanksgiving dinner. Students will love thinking of other things for people to eat besides turkey this thanksgiving! It’s so fun to see what creative ideas they come up with!
Thankful Class Book
This is a wonderful class book for talking about Thanksgiving and goes perfectly with any book about being thankful like this book, Thanks for Thanksgiving. . Students can draw a picture of something that they are thankful for! You could even create this book at home as a family! Just print the colorful cover and printable writing pages and you are set!
Turkey Counting Class Book
Students will love making this book called, Turkey, You Can Count on Me: Students will practice counting and writing numbers by drawing feathers on a turkey. This is a great way to tie in math to literacy and create a counting book as a class. Simply. Assign each child a number and they will create that page for the book. Colored feathers can even be glued on too!
If you are looking for ideas to teach counting, check out this post: 12 Counting Activities to Teach Numbers 1-10
All of these class books and more are included in this product, Thanksgiving Class Books!
I also love adding student pictures to class books. This really helps students to not only recognize their own name, but the names of their classmates too! If you are looking for a template to make this easy to do all year check out, Editable Class Book Author Picture Template or you can read more about using class books in your classroom in this post, How to Make Meaningful Class Books for Preschoolers.
Preschool Turkey Project
Poor turkey doesn’t want to be eaten for Thanksgiving! A fun preschool turkey project is to create a disguise for turkey to wear! This book, Turkey Trouble is a great read-aloud to do before the project. It’s so much fun seeing the creative ideas that your students will come up with! This printable is part of my Thanksgiving Class Books and makes a great family project too!
Thanksgiving Math Activities for Preschoolers
What is Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie? If your preschoolers are learning about shapes, these Thanksgiving Play Dough Mats are a super math center! Students can practice making 2-D shapes out of play dough! You can even make pumpkin pie play dough to go with it! Check out my easy (and no cook) pumpkin pie play dough recipe!
These pumpkin pie-themed play dough mats are available in November Toddler Activities as well as other fun activities for this month.
If your little ones are working on counting objects to 10, this Thanksgiving Count and Write the Room is perfect. It’s a great (and super simple) activity for the classroom or at home! You can download it for free and read more about the activity in this post, Thanksgiving Count and Write the Room.
Pocket Chart Thanksgiving Preschool Activities
Keep preschool and Kindergarten students learning with these Thanksgiving Pocket Chart Activities. Each activity is simple, repetitive, and targets preschool skills like letters, numbers colors, patterns, and more! These activities are perfect for printing and quickly adding to a pocket chart center or station!
Here are the Thanksgiving Pocket Chart Activities included:
- Uppercase and lowercase letter matching pocket chart activity
- AB and ABC patterns pocket chart activity
- Predictable sentence scramble pocket chart activity
- Color words and picture-matching pocket chart activity
- Counting to 10 pocket chart activity
This Thanksgiving activity is perfect for preschool students. Students will match each color word to the Thanksgiving objects that are that color.
I am Thankful Writing
Even if your preschoolers aren’t writing independently yet, they can still share what they are thankful for with writing and pictures!
This thankful alphabet writing can be completed together as a class or even sent home for students to do with their families over the Thanksgiving holiday break!
Make a Turkey Treat
Finally, this little turkey treat is perfect for preschoolers to make for friends and family! It’s super simple to make and each one is packaged individually so they are easy to give. You can print the craft pieces and full instructions in this post, Easy Turkey Treat for Kid to Make and Give.
More Thanksgiving Preschool Activities
Thanksgiving Counting Activities
It’s Harvest Time Preschool Journal Writing Prompts
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope you are able to use some of these Thanksgiving preschool activities with your little ones!