Thanksgiving activities for kids: printables for home and school

When is Thanksgiving in 2026?

In the United States, Thanksgiving Day 2026 is Thursday 26 November, a federal holiday. It always falls on the fourth Thursday of November. President Lincoln's 1863 proclamation set the last Thursday of the month, and after two confusing years when states marked different Thursdays, Congress fixed the date as the fourth Thursday in a resolution signed on 26 December 1941.

Canada celebrates Thanksgiving earlier, on the second Monday in October, so Canadian families marked it on 12 October this year. If you're in New Zealand, Australia or the UK and teaching about American holidays, the activities below work as a "giving thanks" theme at any time of year; in the Southern Hemisphere, November is late spring, so swap the autumn leaves for flowers if you like.

Gratitude activities that go further than "thank you"

Thanksgiving is a natural moment to talk about gratitude, and researchers suggest doing more than prompting children to say thank you. The Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley breaks gratitude into four parts, notice, think, feel and do, and offers questions for each: what have you been given, why do you think someone gave it to you, how does it feel inside, and is there a way you want to show it? A five-minute chat at the table using a couple of these questions suits most ages.

A thankful tree turns that conversation into something to look at. Print the leaf template at the smallest size (12 leaves to a page), have each child color and cut out a few leaves, and write one thing they're thankful for on each. Tape the leaves to a branch in a jar, or to a paper trunk on the fridge or classroom wall. Younger children can draw instead of writing, and an adult can label the drawing.

The American Academy of Pediatrics' parenting site suggests other small habits: talking about what went right each day, modeling gratitude yourself, and giving children a way to help others, such as collecting items for a local food bank. A Thanksgiving card for a neighbor or grandparent is an easy start: the Happy Thanksgiving coloring page has the words in bubble letters, ready to color, fold and sign.

Printable games for the Thanksgiving table

Games that need only paper keep children together and away from the stove while the meal is finished.

• Picture bingo for a big family or a class. Thanksgiving picture bingo has 24 different 5×5 cards with a free center, caller cards to cut out and a checklist. Pictures such as a turkey, pumpkin, acorn, corn and pie mean non-readers can play alongside older cousins. Use dried beans or torn paper as markers.
• Bingo for toddlers and preschoolers. Preschool Thanksgiving bingo uses 12 different 3×3 cards with big pictures and words, so a round ends before attention runs out.
• Word search races. The easy Thanksgiving word search hides 10 words in a 10×10 grid; the medium (14 words) and hard (20 words in a 16×16 grid) versions suit older children and adults. Each one has an answer key. Give pairs the same puzzle and see who finishes first.

Thanksgiving coloring pages and activities by age

Pick by attention span rather than exact age, and keep a couple of easier pages on hand for younger siblings.

• Ages 3 to 5. The leaf dot to dot counts from 1 to 10, then becomes a coloring page. Turkey coloring page #1 has a big fan tail with large shapes that small hands can fill with crayons.
• Ages 6 to 8. The autumn leaves color by number (colour by number, in UK and NZ spelling) uses 7 colors with an answer key, which practises reading numbers and following a key. The pumpkin color by number is another quick one.
• Ages 9 to 12. The cornucopia coloring page has lots of detail to shade, and the hard autumn leaf mandala is detailed enough for teens and adults to color alongside them.

The full set is on our Thanksgiving coloring pages hub, and there are more leaves, pumpkins and acorns on the fall coloring pages hub (autumn colouring pages, if you search the UK or NZ way).

Teaching Thanksgiving at school, with care

Many classroom materials retell the "First Thanksgiving" of 1621 as a friendly shared meal. The Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian explains that this version is a myth that took shape in the mid-1800s, when English accounts of the 1621 harvest event resurfaced, and that harvest ceremonies and daily and seasonal traditions of giving thanks were part of Wampanoag life for thousands of years before English settlers arrived.

The museum gives teachers practical advice. It discourages "Native" costumes and crafts in the classroom, because projects that copy Native traditions often spread stereotypes. It recommends picture books with accurate, tribally specific portrayals, such as Keepunumuk: Weeâchumun's Thanksgiving Story for kindergarten to second grade, and reading the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address with students. For grades 3 to 5, its free inquiry resource The "First Thanksgiving": How Can We Tell a Better Story? walks students through Wampanoag perspectives using primary sources.

Our Thanksgiving printables stick to the harvest, food, autumn leaves and gratitude, so they sit comfortably alongside that teaching.

Place cards and decorations kids can make

Children like having a job on the day. Give them the table to decorate.

• Leaf place cards. Print the leaf template at the middle size, color each leaf, write a guest's name on it and stand it against a glass.
• Acorn garland. Cut out the acorn template at the smallest size, color both sides and string the acorns on yarn with tape.
• A colored centerpiece. Lay a few finished coloring pages down the middle of the table as a runner, and let children explain theirs to the guests.

Printing tips for home and school

Every page here has a US Letter and an A4 PDF, so it prints at the right size in the US, Canada, New Zealand, Australia and the UK without scaling. Print in black and white and on ordinary paper; use thin card for place cards and leaves that need to stand up. For a class bingo game, print the cards once, store them in a folder and keep the caller cards for next year. If pages come out cropped, our guide on how to print colouring pages covers the printer settings.