Thanksgiving Classroom Games With Rules, Minutes and What You Need

25 games for Thanksgiving week, from thankful circles to a turkey waddle, with rules, minutes and supplies.

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The Feast Guest ListWhole class, 10 minutes, nothing. Grades 3 to 8. You are hosting a feast, and you have a secret rule for what guests may bring. Start it off: "I am bringing pumpkin pie." Pupils offer a dish in turn, and you answer "you may come" or "not this year". The rule might be foods that start with P, foods with a double letter, or foods that start with the speaker's own first initial. A pupil who thinks they know tests it with another dish and never says the rule aloud.

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All 25 games

Relays and moving games 9

Clothespin Feather Tag Whole class in an open space, 5 to 10 minutes, 3 clothespins for every pupil. Grades 1 to 5. Every pupil clips 3 clothespin feathers to their sleeves or the back of their shoulders. On the signal everyone walks fast, no running, and tries to unclip feathers from other players while guarding their own. No covering a feather with a hand and no backing against a wall. A feather you take is clipped to your own sleeve. After 2 minutes, stop and count. Nobody is ever out, because a player with no feathers can still collect them.
Feather Float Teams of 4 or 5, 5 to 10 minutes, a craft feather per team and a clock. Grades 1 to 6. Each team stands in a small circle. On the signal one pupil drops a craft feather from above head height, and the team keeps it in the air by blowing. No hands, and nobody may blow twice in a row. Time each team, and the longest float wins. A steady breath from underneath works better than a hard one, because a feather caught side-on shoots away. A square of tissue paper works if you have no feathers.
Feather Hunt Teams of 4 or 5, 10 to 15 minutes, paper feathers in 5 colors hidden around the room and a paper turkey body per team. Grades K to 4. Before the class comes in, hide paper feathers in 5 colors around the room, at least one of each color for every team. Each team keeps a turkey body on its desk. One hunter per team goes out at a time, brings back a single feather and tags the next hunter. A tail needs one feather of every color, so a color the team already has goes back where it was found. The first complete tail wins.
Pumpkin Bowling Lanes of 5 or 6, 10 to 15 minutes, 6 empty plastic bottles and a mini pumpkin or orange ball per lane. Grades K to 6. Stand 6 bottles in a triangle of 3, 2 and 1, and mark a line 4 steps back. Each pupil rolls twice and scores 1 point for every pin down, while the next pupil in line resets the pins. A mini pumpkin with its stem cut short is the classic ball. It never rolls straight, which evens out the skill. An orange playground ball is the easier option. Play 3 rounds and add up the score for each lane.
Pumpkin Pass Lines of 6 to 8, 5 to 10 minutes, an orange ball or a mini pumpkin per line. Grades K to 5. Teams stand in lines, all facing forward. The pupil at the front passes the pumpkin back over their head, the next pupil passes it between their knees, and so on, over and under, to the end of the line. The last pupil carries it to the front and starts again. When the pupil who began is back at the front, the team sits down. A real mini pumpkin is heavier than it looks, so use a ball with kindergarten.
Scarecrow Dress-Up Relay Teams of 5 or 6, 10 minutes, for each team a large shirt and a pair of gloves. Grades K to 5. Pile a big flannel shirt and a pair of work gloves at each team line. The first runner puts both on over their clothes, walks to a chair, stands like a scarecrow with arms straight out for a count of 3, then walks back and takes them off for the next runner. Teammates may help with the buttons. Adult sizes from a thrift store go on fastest. Leave hats and scarves out, because shared ones can pass on head lice.
Table Setting Relay Teams of 6, 10 minutes, for each team a paper plate, a plastic fork, knife and spoon, a cup and a napkin. Grades 1 to 6. Pile each team's 6 pieces at the team line and draw a placemat on a desk across the room. Runners carry one piece each and put it where it belongs: fork and napkin to the left of the plate, knife and spoon to the right with the knife blade facing the plate, cup above the knife. A later runner may fix one mistake on the way. The first correct setting wins. Check it against a drawing on the board.
Thanksgiving This or That Whole class, 5 to 10 minutes, nothing. Grades K to 8. Name two choices and point to a side of the room for each. Eight to read: mashed potatoes or stuffing, pumpkin pie or apple pie, parade or football, cook or wash up, corn or green beans, stay home or travel, rake the leaves or jump in the pile, kids' table or grown-ups' table. Pupils walk to their side, and one pupil from each side gives a reason in one sentence. Count heads each time and have a scorekeeper tally the results on the board. After 8 questions the class has a chart of its own tastes to read.
Turkey Waddle Relay Teams of 5 or 6, 10 minutes, a beanbag or soft ball per team and a cone. Grades K to 5. Each runner holds a beanbag between the knees and waddles to a cone and back, with hands tucked under the arms as wings. If the beanbag drops, the runner stops, puts it back and carries on from that spot. Runners hand over at the team line, and the whole team gobbles each one home, which keeps the waiting pupils busy. Use beanbags or soft balls, not balloons, because some pupils are allergic to latex.

Thankful games 6

Thankful Alphabet Whole class in a circle, 10 minutes, nothing. Grades 1 to 8. Go around the circle from A to Z. Each pupil names something they are thankful for that starts with their letter: aunts, basketball, cousins. For Q, X and Z the class may help, and a word that only contains the letter counts, such as a box of crayons. Anyone may pass once and take the next letter. With 26 letters and about 25 pupils, everyone gets a turn. Write the list on the board as it grows.
Thankful Dice Groups of 4, 5 to 10 minutes, a die per group. Grades K to 6. Write the key on the board: 1 a person, 2 a place, 3 a food, 4 something in this room, 5 something you can do now that you could not do last year, 6 your own choice. Pupils take turns to roll and name one thing they are thankful for in that category. No repeats inside a group. After 3 times around, each group picks its best answer to share with the class.
Thankful Paper Chain Race Teams of 4 or 5, 10 to 15 minutes, paper strips, pencils and tape for each team. Grades 1 to 6. Give each team a stack of paper strips. A link counts only when it has something a teammate is thankful for written on it, and no two links in a chain may say the same thing. Teams write, loop and tape for 8 minutes. Then hold the chains up side by side. The longest chain wins, and each team reads its 3 best links aloud. Join all the chains together and hang them across the room.
Thankful Scavenger Hunt Pairs, 10 to 15 minutes, a list of 8 prompts and a pencil per pair. Grades K to 5. Each pair gets 8 prompts and walks the room to find an answer for each one without picking anything up: something that makes your day easier, something that makes you laugh, something a classmate made, something older than you, something you would miss if it broke. Pairs write or draw what they found. Back on the carpet, take one prompt at a time and hear 3 answers. Kindergarten pupils can do 4 prompts in pictures.
Thankful Toss Whole class in a circle, 5 to 10 minutes, a soft ball or beanbag. Grades K to 5. Give a category, such as people, food, places or things at school. The pupil holding the ball names one thing in that category they are thankful for, then tosses the ball underarm to someone who has not had it. Pupils fold their arms after their turn so the thrower can see who is left. Nothing may be said twice. Change the category each time the ball has been all the way around.
Whose Thanks Is It? Whole class, 10 to 15 minutes, a slip of paper each and a cup. Grades 2 to 8. Every pupil writes one thing they are thankful for that classmates might not guess, such as my grandfather's pancakes, signs the back and drops the slip in a cup. Read a slip aloud. The class gets 3 guesses at who wrote it, then the writer stands up and says one more sentence about it. Read 8 or 10 in a sitting and save the rest for the following days, so every slip has been read before the break.

Guessing and acting games 5

The Feast Guest List Whole class, 10 minutes, nothing. Grades 3 to 8. You are hosting a feast, and you have a secret rule for what guests may bring. Start it off: "I am bringing pumpkin pie." Pupils offer a dish in turn, and you answer "you may come" or "not this year". The rule might be foods that start with P, foods with a double letter, or foods that start with the speaker's own first initial. A pupil who thinks they know tests it with another dish and never says the rule aloud.
Pumpkin String Guess Whole class, 10 minutes, a pumpkin, a ball of yarn and scissors. Grades 1 to 6. Put a pumpkin where everyone can see it. Each pupil, or each pair, cuts a piece of yarn they think will go exactly once around its widest part, without coming close to measure. Then wrap each string in turn. Sort the strings on the board into too short, too long and within a finger's width. Many pupils cut too short, because the distance around a circle is a little more than 3 times the distance across it.
Thanksgiving Charades Teams of 5 or 6, 10 to 15 minutes, one numbered list of 10 things to act out, kept by you. Grades 1 to 8. Hold a numbered list of 10 things to act out. Ten that work: basting a turkey, mashing potatoes, watching a parade float go by, raking leaves, passing a heavy dish, setting the table, carrying a pie without dropping it, jumping into a leaf pile, washing a tall stack of dishes and falling asleep on the couch after dinner. One actor from each team comes to you and reads number 1, then goes back and mimes it in silence. When the team guesses it, the next actor comes up, whispers that answer to you and gets number 2. The first team to finish all 10 wins.
Turkey Fact or Fib Teams of 4, 10 minutes, scrap paper and a pencil per team. Grades 2 to 8. Each team starts with 10 points. Read a statement. Teams bet 1, 2 or 3 points, write fact or fib, and all hold it up at once. A right answer wins the bet and a wrong one loses it. A team on 0 still bets 1. Ten checked statements to read. Fact: wild turkeys can fly. Fact: a pumpkin is a kind of berry. Fib: a male turkey is called a hen. The hen is the female, and the male is a tom or gobbler. Fact: a young turkey is called a poult. Fib: in the United States, Thanksgiving is always the last Thursday of November. It is the fourth, and some Novembers have five. Fact: Canada holds its Thanksgiving on October's second Monday. Fact: a tom's gobble carries as far as a mile. Fib: the snood is a turkey's tail. It is the fleshy flap over the bill. Fact: the harvest celebration of 1621 lasted three days. Fib: the Mayflower crossed the ocean in a week. The voyage of 1620 took more than two months, with 102 passengers on board.
Who Gobbled? Whole class, 5 to 10 minutes, nothing. Grades K to 4. One pupil sits at the front with their back to the class and eyes shut. Point silently to a pupil, who gobbles once in a disguised voice. The guesser has 2 guesses at who it was. Right or wrong, the gobbler is the next guesser, so the turn always passes on. Teach the fact first: a male turkey is called a tom or a gobbler, and his gobble can carry up to a mile.

Table, drawing and word games 5

Corn Maze Guide Pairs, 10 minutes, a printed maze and a pencil per pair. Grades 1 to 6. One partner holds the pencil with eyes shut. The other can see the maze and steers with words only: up, stop, left a little, stop. No touching the pencil or the paper. Count one point against the pair every time the line crosses a wall, and the lowest count wins. Then swap roles with a fresh maze. Pupils learn fast that "stop" is the most useful word, and that the guide has to say it early.
Foil Boat Challenge Teams of 3 or 4, 15 to 20 minutes, a 6 inch square of foil per team, a tub of water and about 120 pennies. Grades 2 to 8. The Mayflower carried 102 passengers across the Atlantic in 1620, on a voyage of more than two months. Each team shapes one square of foil into a boat, with 5 minutes to build and no spare foil. Float the boats one at a time and add pennies as passengers, counting aloud, until the boat goes under. The last number before it sank is the score. Wide, flat boats with low sides beat deep, narrow ones. Can any boat carry 102?
Paper Football Pairs, 10 to 15 minutes, a sheet of paper per pair and a desk. Grades 3 to 8. Fold a sheet of paper into a tight triangle. Players sit at opposite ends of a desk and take turns to slide the ball with one flick. It is a touchdown when the ball stops with part of it hanging over the far edge. Score it as 6, as in American football. The scorer then tries a kick: the other player makes goalposts with thumb tips touching and index fingers pointing up, and a flick through them adds 1.
Roll a Turkey Groups of 3 or 4, 10 to 15 minutes, a die per group, and paper and a pencil each. Grades K to 5. Everyone draws their own turkey, one part for each roll: 1 the body, 2 the head, 3 an eye, 4 the beak with the red snood that hangs over it, 5 a leg, 6 a tail feather. The body must come first, and the head before anything that goes on it. A finished turkey has 1 body, 1 head, 2 eyes, 1 beak, 2 legs and 5 tail feathers, 12 parts in all. The first to finish calls "Gobble".
Words From Thanksgiving Pairs, 10 minutes, paper and a pencil per pair. Grades 2 to 8. Write THANKSGIVING on the board. Pairs have 5 minutes to list words of 3 or more letters made from its letters, using each letter no more often than it appears, so two Ns, two Gs and two Is are allowed but only one S. Thanks, giving, night, saving, hiking and vanish all work. Score 1 point for 3 or 4 letters, 2 for 5 or 6 letters and 3 for longer. A word another pair also found scores nothing.

How this list was compiled

Rules written for this site in our own words. Checked on 2026-09-18 with WebFetch against English Wikipedia: that Thanksgiving in the United States is the fourth Thursday of November and that the 1621 harvest celebration lasted three days, that Thanksgiving in Canada is the second Monday in October, that wild turkeys can fly, that the male is called a tom or gobbler, that his gobble carries up to a mile, that the young are poults and that the snood is the fleshy flap over the bill, that a pumpkin is botanically a berry, that the Mayflower carried 102 passengers in 1620 on a voyage of more than two months, how paper football is played (the touchdown over the edge, the finger goalposts and a kick worth 1), the dice drawing game Beetle that Roll a Turkey is modeled on, where the pieces of a place setting go, and how charades is played: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(United_States), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_turkey, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumpkin, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paper_football, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beetle_(game), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_setting, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charades, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squeak_piggy_squeak (the voice guessing game behind Who Gobbled?). Checked again on 2026-09-20 with WebFetch for the ten Turkey Fact or Fib statements and the head lice note: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wild_turkey (agile fliers; the adult male is a tom or gobbler and the adult female a hen; the gobble carries as far as a mile; the snood is a fleshy flap on the bill), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mayflower (102 passengers; the voyage of 1620 took more than two months), https://www.cdc.gov/lice/about/head-lice.html (hats and scarves are both on the CDC list of shared clothing that may spread head lice, which is why the scarecrow wears a shirt and gloves only). The lists printed in the rules (10 charades actions, 8 this or that pairs) are our own. The letters of THANKSGIVING and every example word were checked one by one, as was the 12 part turkey (1 + 1 + 2 + 1 + 2 + 5). The 6 points for a touchdown is the convention of American football; the Paper football article gives no fixed value. Games with no article of their own (Turkey Waddle Relay, Feather Hunt, Pumpkin Bowling, Feather Float, Pumpkin Pass, Clothespin Feather Tag, Table Setting Relay, Scarecrow Dress-Up Relay, Thanksgiving This or That, the six Thankful games (Whose Thanks Is It? among them), The Feast Guest List, Turkey Fact or Fib, Pumpkin String Guess, Words From Thanksgiving, Foil Boat Challenge, Corn Maze Guide) are described from common classroom and party practice. Nothing is eaten in any game, and no game uses candy, balloons, shared hats or scarves, or costumes of any people. Minutes, group sizes and grade ranges are our advice, not measurements. Licence: own work

How it works

These Thanksgiving classroom games are for the short week in November, when the room is restless. The full list of 25 is below the button. Nothing is eaten, nobody dresses up as anyone, and 8 are plain fall games.

Read the full guide

Six games about being thankful

Six games ask pupils to name something they are thankful for, each in a different way. Thankful Alphabet goes around the circle from A to Z. In Thankful Dice a roll chooses the category, which helps a pupil who freezes on an open question. Whose Thanks Is It? takes writing, so keep it for 2nd grade and up.

Fall games for a harvest party

Choose Fall games, no holiday in the All games menu for 8 games about pumpkins, scarecrows and corn mazes, with no turkey and no feast. Use them for a harvest party, or in a room where some families do not keep the day. Pumpkin Bowling and Pumpkin Pass work with an orange ball, and Paper Football with a single sheet of paper.

Turkey Fact or Fib covers the date: in the United States, the fourth Thursday of November, always between November 22 and 28.
Skip balloons, shared hats and shared scarves: the relays use beanbags, and the scarecrow wears a big shirt and gloves.
Print mazes for Corn Maze Guide with the maze maker. Choose a small size, because the pupil who draws has eyes shut.

Questions and answers

Which Thanksgiving games need no supplies?

Four need nothing: Thanksgiving This or That, Thankful Alphabet, Who Gobbled? and The Feast Guest List. The first and third fit the 5 minutes before the bell. Choose No equipment in the All games menu to draw from only those four.

What works for kindergarten and 1st grade?

Nineteen of the 25, and the All games menu has a band for them. Turkey Waddle Relay, Feather Hunt and Roll a Turkey are the easiest to explain. In Roll a Turkey the die decides which part to draw, so pupils practice reading a die.

Do any of the games teach something about the holiday?

Turkey Fact or Fib prints 10 checked statements with their answers: wild turkeys can fly, and a young one is called a poult. Foil Boat Challenge starts from the 102 passengers of the Mayflower. Table Setting Relay teaches where the fork goes.