We thought we’d pass on a few of our favorite Thanksgiving math activities to help keep your little ones entertained this holiday season.
Whether your child is into counting down the days until the feast, practicing their addition and subtraction skills, or trying to solve word problems that involve Thanksgiving traditions like pie baking, they’ll love these fun activities!
Let’s start learning math with Thanksgiving turkey activities!
Fun Thanksgiving Math Ideas
We know you’re busy preparing for the Thanksgiving meal. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of math ideas and Thanksgiving math activities to help you get through the holiday stress-free!
Turkey Math Kindergarten
🦃 Q-tips Turkey-Dots Counting Activity
This easy game is an excellent way to get your little ones practicing their counting skills while also getting into the festive spirit of Thanksgiving.
Don’t ditch the turkey this year, but add something educational too. Gobble ’til you wobble!
What will you need?
- Printable template
- 2 Toilet paper rolls
- Scissors
- Paint in 6 different colors
- Markers in the same 6 colors
- Q-tips
- Small cup
- Paint Palette Tray
What to do?
Download then print the turkey template. Make your own dice from toilet paper rolls.
Cut a piece from the toilet paper roll, then cut a slightly smaller piece. Fold and shape both circles into a square shape, then fit them together.
Use the markers to dot one dice, then mark 6 different colors on the other dice. Put the Q-tips in a cup.
Pour the paint into a paint pallet in the same six colors as on the dice. Then enjoy the fun game while getting into the holiday spirit.
How to play?
Players take turns rolling the number dice and color dice. Then they have to paint as many dots around their turkey sheet as the numbers, in the color of what they have rolled.
Dip the Q-tips in paint and dab the dots. The first player to reach 50 dots wins! This fun Turkey activity is ideal for the whole family and you could play together after Thanksgiving dinner.
🦃 Turkey Directions
When teaching direction to kids, one thing is for sure – fun is key in math practice!
What’s the best way to use arrows to help your little ones understand which way is up, down, left, and right? Use pictures along with the arrows.
What will you need?
- Printable template
- Conkers (15 pieces)
- White acrylic marker
What to do?
First, download and print the template with the turkey pictures. Then draw arrows on each conker.
Then let your child match the arrow to the turkey’s direction. The arrow should point to the turkey’s head, showing where it’s turned.
Thanksgiving Counting Activities
🦃 Counting and Color Matching Turkey
Do you have a budding mathematician on your hands? If so, then this Thanksgiving math activity is perfect for them! They can learn about counting and color matching while enjoying some Thanksgiving fun.
What will you need?
- Cardboard
- Acrylic paint (10 different colors)
- Paintbrush
- Wooden pegs
- Clear tape
- Marker
What to do?
Draw a turkey with 10 feathers on a piece of cardboard. Paint the feathers in different colors using acrylic paint. Also, paint 10 wooden pegs using the same colors as the feathers.
Clever the turkey with clear tape, then cut out the turkey shape.
How to play?
There are three different levels of this activity depending on your child’s math skills.
- Let your toddler match the colored pegs with the feathers. Simply pinch them on the right one practicing color matching and fine motor skills, developing hand strength.
- Draw a number on the turkey’s belly with a marker. Let your preschooler recognize the number then count the same amount of pegs and pinch them on the turkey’s feathers.
Wipe off the number with a cloth and repeat.
- Elder kids can do the same thing but solve addition or subtraction tasks.
🦃 Counting and Number Matching Turkey
Whenever we all decide to celebrate Thanksgiving, we typically enjoy each other’s company, relish delicious food, and are grateful to have the things that we have.
But did you know that kids will enjoy a Thanksgiving theme math activity? Our children really enjoyed practicing math skills with cute turkeys.
What will you need?
- 10 leaves
- Conkers
- Sharpie
- Play-Doh (brown, yellow, red)
- Googly eyes
What to do?
Make a circle shape for the turkey head from brown playdough, use a yellow piece of playdough for the beak, and a red piece for the snood.
Using a black sharpie write a number on each leaf from 1-10. And place it above the turkey’s head like feathers.
Prepare the conkers underneath, and let your child pick and count as many conkers as it’s written on the leaves.
Thanksgiving Preschool Math Activities
🦃 Follow the Pattern Thanksgiving Math
Little kids love games with colors and patterns. This math activity will add some holiday fun to your lesson plans this month.
This is a great problem-solving challenge that can be enjoyed by little kids. You might wonder what pattern matching has to do with math.
Pattern matching is an important basic math knowledge. It will help little kids understand in the future of how numbers work together.
What will you need?
What to do?
Turn upside down three plastic cups. Use the sharpies to draw three different Thanksgiving themed patterns on the bottom of the cups.
Draw the same Thanksgiving patterns on craft sticks in six different orders. Let your kids follow the pattern using the cups.
🦃 Fun Pumpkin Pie Slicing for Kids – Thanksgiving Math Crafts
My daughter loves cutting playdough, that’s why we came up with this math activity idea. Kids can practice both math and fine motor skills.
What will you need?
What to do?
Form a circle from the playdough to get a nice pumpkin pie. Put Lego Duplo figures around the pie.
Let your child count how many slices need to be cut out of the pumpkin pie to get enough for all the Lego dolls, but do not leave any leftovers on the tray. Then repeat with different numbers.
Free Thanksgiving Math Worksheets
We know the feeling, scrambling to come up with something to do on the holidays before Thanksgiving dinner gets ready.
Well, we have prepared a few free math worksheets to keep your little ones busy!
Some will be listed below, and other templates will be attached to certain Thanksgiving math activities that belong to the description.
🦃 Thanksgiving Math Printables for Preschoolers
Download this turkey counting worksheet and watch your preschoolers have fun as they count, trace and match the numbers, and figure out the missing patterns.
🦃 Free Printable Thanksgiving Math Worksheets for Kindergarten
These Thanksgiving addition worksheets are perfect for getting kids in the holiday spirit while giving them a little extra practice with their numbers.
And best of all, they’re free!
🦃 Thanksgiving Printables for Elementary Students
Make this holiday more fun with a Thanksgiving multiplication worksheet! Not only will your get to practice their multiplication skills, but they’ll also get to solve a logic puzzle and work with fractions.
And who knows, maybe they’ll even have so much fun that they won’t even realize they’re doing math!
If you are looking for more fun learning experiences for your kids, then Messylearningkids is the perfect website for you!
With a variety of messy activities to choose from, your kids will be sure to have a blast while learning new things. So what are you waiting for? Go check it out today!
