First Grade Thanksgiving Math Activities

The holidays are near. This brings about a crazy, busy season that can be stressful both inside and outside of the classroom. The kids are excited about the upcoming festivities and breaks from school, and we as teachers are too. Try to focus on that excitement by bringing in some seasonal fun into your lessons. This will make it much more enjoyable for everyone involved. Here are some of my favorite first grade Thanksgiving math activities.

First Grade Math

First grade math is a major time of growth and development for your students. You'll begin the year reviewing kindergarten skills, and then you'll quickly move into new and exciting things. First grade math focuses on four main standards:

• Operations and Algebraic Thinking
• Number and Operations in Base Ten
• Measurement Data
• Geometry

While covering these standards you'll teach a variety of skills like addition and subtraction strategies, place value, telling time, measurement, graphs, and 3D shapes. Repetition and fluency are super important for success. Just be sure to change up your teaching methods and strategies so your students don't get bored. You can really have a lot of fun here to increase engagement. I love to use the holidays and seasonal fun to amp up my math lessons. These are some of my favorite Thanksgiving math activities. 

First Grade Thanksgiving Math Activities

We start celebrating Thanksgiving in my classroom on the first day of November. I like to implement this seasonal fun in all content areas. I find that tapping into their holiday excitement helps to keep them focused. Otherwise, I'm constantly fighting against them to keep their attention. Math is the perfect place to slide in some Thanksgiving fun. 

It's easy to do by incorporating things like Pilgrims, pumpkin pie, turkeys, and all things Thanksgiving. Just sprinkle the fun here in there on activities and your kiddos will stay engaged throughout the month. It's a win win for everyone!

Here are some fun first grade Thanksgiving math activities that will get your students excited about learning for the entire month of November.

Thanksgiving Number Lines

I love using number lines to help my students with a variety of math skills.  I always like to have a large one displayed on the board or somewhere in the classroom for everyone to see. It's also a great idea to have a small one on the top of each student desk.

I love to use number lines to practice number sense and counting related skills.  They are also a great tool for helping students learn about the concepts of addition and subtraction and relating them to counting forwards and backwards. They provide a great visual representation for students to use while mastering the standards. 

This Digital Thanksgiving Number Line resource focuses on counting on and counting back. It is very important to understand how addition and subtraction relate to this skill in order to understand operations and algebraic reasoning.

This unit contains 36 pages jam packed with number line fun. I use these pages during the "written math practice" portion of our math class. They are also great to be used in any type of learning situation. They'll work for homework and early finishers too. 

Grab a sneak peak of the whole unit with this FREE Number Line activity.

Making 10 to Add - Thanksgiving Fun

We know that we need to cover the standard for counting on and making 10 to add.  It's a great strategy to help students with addition using the concept of ten.  It not only helps with addition but mental math too! 

But how should we do it? Well, there's no better way to practice that than with this Making 10 Thanksgiving resource. It includes over 20 pages of practice with a Thanksgiving theme.

Your students will enjoy themselves while mastering this standard. Students will have lots of opportunities to work on the making ten to add strategy using using ten frames as a guide and then without.  Your students will love the printable or digital activities to practice this math strategy.  

It will take practice, practice, and more practice, but they'll be up for the challenge with all of the Thanksgiving fun. This resource is great to use for small groups in math rotations, guided practice, homework, or for early finishers.

Color My Math

My kids always enjoy digital activities. Especially when they are creating something. That's why this Thanksgiving Digital Color My Math resource is perfect for November. It will allow you to review first grade place value in a fun and engaging way. 

You'll get 2 different Thanksgiving themed pictures: cornucopia and a turkey. Each picture contains 5-10 place value questions that your students will work though. After each correct answer, a portion of the picture will be colored. My students absolutely love seeing the picture come to life. 

I love that the resource is completely flexible with two different options for your students. The resource gives immediate feedback, is interactive, and self-correcting. It doesn't get much better than that. Check out my Color My Math Thanksgiving Bundle here.

Thanksgiving Number of the Day Activities

Number of the Day is a great way to have your students practice number sense. They are perfect to use as morning work or bell ringers for your math lesson.    

After a few days your students will quickly learn the constant pattern of these worksheets as they develop strong number sense skills all month long. The great news is that they are no prep! So all you have to do is print and copy them for a quick and easy Thanksgiving math activity.

Mix it up a little by adding the digital version to your math centers. Your students will stay highly engaged while practicing some Thanksgiving math fun. This digital version also makes the resource great for hybrid and distance learning.

Grab These Thanksgiving Resources and More

What I love about all of these Thanksgiving activities is that I know my students are working on skills and standards with some Thanksgiving fun thrown in.  If you're looking for even more Thanksgiving activities for your classroom, be sure to check out my TPT store here. I have a ton of engaging resources you and your students will love. Don't forget to grab the FREE Thanksgiving Number Line activity while you're there.

I hope these first grade Thanksgiving math activities get you excited about this month. I know you and your students will enjoy incorporating the season into your math lessons.

Save these Thanksgiving Math Activities

Be sure to save these activities to your favorite Thanksgiving board so you are ready to hit the ground running. You'll be so glad you did.