Are you looking for some awesome lessons about Thanksgiving to do with your students? I’ve got some ideas you might love to try! I love celebrating Thanksgiving with my students, because we can discuss traditions, celebrations, and history during a season that is filled with that stuff. Even though my students don’t celebrate the holiday, they love learning about Thanksgiving so much!
As a non-US or even Canadian citizen, I didn’t always know how to go about talking about holidays I didn’t celebrate myself. But I did love to learn about them! That’s how I knew what to do: just teach them the way I learned about Thanksgiving! So that’s what I did. I’m going to give them the vocabulary, they will watch videos about it and read articles, and they will discuss what kind of a celebration this is. Let me tell you my plan!
Fun Thanksgiving activities at school
So what do I want my students to learn about Thanksgiving? I want them to know the history of the holiday, the traditions that exist in Thanksgiving, and the way it is celebrated in both the US and Canada. I will show them this by having them watch videos and read articles about the topic. And then I also want them to learn the words that are important for Thanksgiving, like pumpkin pie, pilgrims, and cornucopia. They definitely belong in lessons about Thanksgiving!
I also want them to compare this tradition to one that our country has or to Christmas maybe. For this purpose I have come up with a set of writing prompts and speaking prompts to get Them talking and writing and forming their opinion about this celebration. This is the most fun activity I’ve done, and my students always enjoy it!
Awesome Thanksgiving activities for middle school students
Thanksgiving is all about giving thanks! Americans ask themselves what they are thankful for in their lives. It’s a great opportunity to ask students what they are thankful for themselves! I plan on getting my students to talk as well as write about this! I’ll ask them what person, place, game, food, etc. they are thankful for. My Writing Prompts and my Discussion Cards are ideal for this purpose.
I get students to find out what Thanksgiving is all about! For this purpose, I use QR codes to take them to the websites I want them to use. I choose the sources myself. Then I get them to research where Thanksgiving comes from, what traditions there are now, and what Black Friday is. For this, I use my Choice Board, because it allows me to provide my students with lots of different resources, and I can differentiate in different ways with this! I will use resources from YouTube, National Geographic, History, and Wonderopolis.
What to add to great Thanksgiving ESL lessons
What English learners need in my opinion is context. So if you’re going to teach the vocabulary of Thanksgiving, teach it in context by using an article to read or spoken text to listen to so that they can understand how everything relates. And then get them to use the vocabulary in context as well by having them write or speak about Thanksgiving using the vocabulary that they have learned.
My students will learn lots of new words for Thanksgiving things and I love to use games to practice words. I love me some Dominoes, Memory, and Dobble!
Another way to revise and practice Thanksgiving vocabulary is to use word searches and crosswords puzzles. I’ve made my Word Search digital as well, so it’s even more engaging, and I Ioved making a Crossword Puzzle with picture clues. Keeps them busy for a bit 🙂
So that’s what I’m going to be doing this year. I hope you’ve found some inspiration for your own lessons about Thanksgiving! If you have any questions, or you want to learn more, please don’t hesitate to reach out. I love to talk about anything relating to teaching.
And if you don’t have any questions, but are just glad to use some of my resources in your lessons, then you can find them via this link. It takes you to my entire Thanksgiving bundle, but you can also pick and choose the part that you want. I’d do anything to make your life easier, really!
For other articles about things happening in the fall, check out these articles:
Top 5 amazing ideas for active and engaging fall lesson plans
Top 3 Halloween writing prompts that students will love
Also check out this article by Lesson Plan Toolbox that has all sorts of cool activities for primary students!
