November builds toward Thanksgiving quickly, and these Thanksgiving classroom crafts give you options for keeping students focused while still bringing the season into the room. You will find thankfulness crafts, turkey projects, painting activities, science experiments, and gift ideas below — all designed for elementary classrooms.
Crafts for the Thanksgiving Season that Focus on Thankfulness
The Thankful Tree gives students a structured way to reflect on what they have, what they can do, and who they are. It works well as a November anchor activity that students return to throughout the week.
Thankful Tree Craftivity | November Gratitude & Thanksgiving Activity
Encourage gratitude all month long with this November Thankful Tree Craftivity! Students write one or two things they are thankful for each day, add their ideas to leaves, and create a meaningful family keepsake to take home before Thanksgiving. Includes tree trunk options, cutting options, multiple leaf sizes, anchor chart suggestions, and thankful idea prompts.
The Thankful Flapbook pairs the craft with a writing component. Students reflect on four categories — things, places, people, and events — completing one section per day so they have time to think through each response. On Friday, they can turn those items into a paragraph. The finished flapbook travels home with them right before break.
Thankful Flap Book Craftivity | November Gratitude Writing Activity
Encourage gratitude and reflection with this Thankful Flap Book Craftivity for November! Students brainstorm, draw, and write about people, places, things, and events they are thankful for, then combine their ideas into a final paragraph. A meaningful Thanksgiving writing craft and family keepsake with multiple page options included.
Teaching Ideas for the Month of November
November gives you a lot of built-in content hooks that connect naturally to what students are already noticing outside.
In November, so much is happening in the environment. For instance, the weather is getting colder, leaves are changing colors and falling, and snow may even arrive.
Students may not realize how much science is going on behind these events. Students will work on the scientific method while exploring fascinating topics, such as dissolving candy pumpkins and edible cranberry slime.
November is the perfect time to explore 26 Thanksgiving Themed Science Experiments.
While working through these science experiments, students may also start to wonder how Thanksgiving originated. The Make Connections between Historical Events unit helps students understand the events leading to the first Thanksgiving and trace the key connections between them. The unit focuses on the Pilgrims and the Mayflower but is flexible enough to customize for your students.
This unit focuses on the Pilgrims and the Mayflower, but it is flexible enough for you to customize to meet your students’ needs.
Thanksgiving Craft Ideas
Students are harder to keep focused as the break gets closer. These Thanksgiving crafts work even if you’re not an art teacher — the instructions are simple and the materials are basic.
Painting Craft Ideas for Thanksgiving
A student-favorite activity involves using paint to make a corn wreath. Since corn is a staple at Thanksgiving, students design multiple cornstalks, put them together, and take them home to hang up on the door!
Teachers can even add in a math component by calculating how many dots each stalk needs to have. Or, students can work on symmetry to make both sides of the wreath match.
Paper Craft Ideas for Thanksgiving
Paper turkeys are also a hit! There are even multiple ways for students to complete this activity.
For example, they can use a paper plate to design their turkey. Or, they can trace and cut out their handprint on construction paper to build their design. Students can even use their feet to make the body of a turkey!
Other November Craft Ideas
Thanksgiving brings many new ideas to the classroom! Another popular craft involves making festive items out of popsicle sticks.
For instance, students can build turkeys, scarecrows, or owls. After everyone creates their object, students can even form groups to put on a short stick figure skit!
Here are a few other Thanksgiving craft ideas that require a bit more supplies, like empty mason jars, but also make fun parent gifts or centerpiece ideas.
November is a good month for this kind of work — students are motivated by the season, and these activities give that energy somewhere productive to go.
Looking for Thanksgiving writing ideas to go with these crafts? See my Thanksgiving writing prompts.
Jessica BOschen
Jessica is a teacher, homeschool parent, and entrepreneur. She shares her passion for teaching and education on What I Have Learned. Jessica has 16 years of experience teaching elementary school and currently homeschools her two middle and high school boys. She enjoys scaffolding learning for students, focusing on helping our most challenging learners achieve success in all academic areas.