5 Easy Ways to Keep Kids Engaged Before Thanksgiving

Hello Darlings!

Are you feeling it? The absolutely antsy, excited, and restless behaviors your elementary students have right before a major holiday?

I can tell you right now that I SURE feel it, see it, and I am prepared to keep my kiddos as busy as possible!

Honestly, I struggle with feeling restless right before a break as well. I tend to be overwhelmed tying up loose ends, trying to finish all my work (so that I don’t have to take any home with me…EEK!), and prepping for the Thanksgiving holiday itself (grocery lists, laundry, cleaning…DOUBLE EEK!).

Since we are all restless and ready for the Thanksgiving holiday, I wanted to share some simple, no prep Thanksgiving ideas and activities to keep your students active, engaged, and ready to learn!

One Thanksgiving activity that I love with my students is writing gratitude letters. I even have a Thanksgiving FREEBIE to do that! These 12 “I Am Thankful” differentiated writing templates are the perfect printable Thanksgiving resource to use to write letters of gratitude to past teachers, family members, friends, etc. To add an even more personal touch, we also record videos of ourselves reading these letters and talking about how thankful we are for our person(s). This is such an engaging, sweet way to focus on what’s most important – the people we love!

Another Thanksgiving activity that my students LOVE is the Digital and Printable Thanksgiving Challenge: Dishing our Dinner.

Students will work in teams to complete four no-prep challenges that offer excellent review for reading, ELA, addition, subtraction, multiplication, and more!⁠ These fun challenges include: ⁠

⁠Spinning Pumpkin Challenge⁠, Mashed Potatoes Challenge⁠, The Meat of the Story Challenge⁠, and It’s a Piece of Pie⁠.