In November, many classrooms turn to gratitude, family traditions and the harvest. In the United States, Thanksgiving is on Thursday, November 26, 2026; in Canada it was celebrated on Monday, October 12. Either way, a Thanksgiving theme gives young children familiar words and pictures for practicing math, phonics and sight words.
Teaching Thanksgiving to Young Children
For PreK and Kindergarten, focus on ideas children can relate to: being thankful, sharing a meal, helping at home and the fall harvest. Families celebrate in different ways, and some do not celebrate at all, so invite children to share what they do without expecting one kind of celebration. When the history of the holiday comes up, keep it simple and respectful, and avoid costumes or crafts that copy Native American clothing or headdresses.
Thanksgiving Math Worksheets and Activities
Counting and graphing favorite foods
Ask each child to choose a favorite food from a few pictures (pie, corn, potatoes, rolls) and build a class graph. Count each column together, then ask which food has the most votes and which has the fewest.
Ten frames with harvest counters
Print ten frame pages with the free Ten Frame Worksheet Maker and let children fill the frames with paper corn, leaf or pumpkin cut-outs before writing the number.
Turkey feather number bonds
Give each child a paper turkey and feathers in two colors. “Your turkey has 5 feathers. 3 are red. How many are yellow?” This shows how a number is made of two parts.
Setting the table
Setting a pretend table is real-life math: one plate, one cup and one napkin for each person. Children practice one-to-one matching and can count how many more plates are needed.
More, fewer and the same
Compare two baskets of harvest pictures. Kindergartners who are ready can use the words greater than and less than; see our Greater Than Less Than Worksheets.
Thanksgiving Phonics Worksheets for Kindergarten
Thanksgiving words are great for sound work:
- Beginning sounds: turkey /t/, pie /p/, corn /k/, leaf /l/, family /f/. Remind children that corn starts with the letter c but sounds like /k/.
- Syllables: clap pie (1), turkey (2), pumpkin (2), Thanksgiving (3), cranberry (3).
- Rhymes: pie, tie, sky; corn, horn; yam, jam.
- CVC words: build yam, jam, pot, pan, nut and bun with letter cards, then read them together.
Thanksgiving Sight Words Worksheets
Sentence frames with Thanksgiving pictures make sight word practice meaningful:
- “I am thankful for ___.”
- “I can see the ___.”
- “We like to eat ___.”
Children read the frame, add a word or picture and illustrate it. For games, type the week’s sight words into the free Bingo Card Maker, or make a puzzle with the Word Search Maker for Kindergarten and 1st grade.
Thanksgiving Words A–Z
Use this list for word walls, word searches, bingo cards, beginning-sound sorts and writing centers. Choose a few words at a time for younger children.
- A: apple pie, acorn, autumn
- B: bread, basket, bake
- C: corn, cranberry, cornucopia
- D: dinner, dessert
- E: eat, enjoy
- F: family, feast, friends, fall
- G: grateful, gravy, give
- H: harvest, hay, help
- I: invite
- J: jam
- K: kind, kitchen
- L: leaves, love
- M: mashed potatoes, maple
- N: napkin, November
- O: oven, oak
- P: pumpkin pie, parade, plate
- Q: quilt
- R: rolls, rake
- S: share, squash, stuffing
- T: turkey, thankful, table
- U: utensils
- V: vegetables
- W: wheat, warm
- X: extra (the x is in the middle!)
- Y: yams, yummy
- Z: zucchini
Thanksgiving Reading and Writing Ideas
- A thankful journal: each day, children draw or write one thing they are thankful for.
- A class gratitude book: every child makes one page, and you read the book together. The Our Class Is a Family activities fit this well, and our article on building classroom community has more ideas.
- Label the table: children label a picture of a Thanksgiving table with words from the A–Z list.
- Kindness awards: the free Certificate & Award Maker prints a kindness or helper award for every child.
Free Thanksgiving Printables in Minutes
- A word search with words from the A–Z list
- Sight word or number bingo cards
- Ten frame pages to 10 or 20
- Fall-design name coloring pages from the Name Coloring Page Maker
- A simple maze from the Maze Maker
A few short Thanksgiving math, phonics and sight word activities keep learning steady during a short, busy week.
