23+ Thanksgiving Science and STEM Activities
Are you looking for ways to make your Thanksgiving even more special this year? Look no further than these Thanksgiving science and STEM activities! It’s never too early to introduce children to the wonders of science and curiosity! You and your children will have fun with these excellent science and STEM ideas for your kids in honor of one fantastic holiday.
Thanksgiving Science and STEM Activities
Perfect for both teachers as well as moms, these fun and educational Thanksgiving ideas will put a new spin on gratitude while also sparking creativity and engaging young minds. From creating a thankful tree to learning about pumpkins and turkeys, there is no shortage of exciting fall activities to engage your children in festive learning.
So gather up the kids (and supplies!), and let’s prepare for some Thanksgiving Science & STEM!
Here are 23 Thanksgiving science and STEM activities your kids will love! These projects will keep them busy all month long, from making cranberry slime to designing boats fit for seafaring Pilgrims. Happy Thanksgiving!
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Thanksgiving Science Activities
Get your kids ready for some STEM fun with this erupting pumpkin science experiment. What a fun way to jump into Thanksgiving! It’s your classic baking soda and vinegar experiment with a colorful twist inside a pumpkin.
This turkey life cycle lapbook is a fun, exciting hands-on activity perfect for your Thanksgiving science lessons. Lapbooks are a fantastic way to help kids retain the things they’re learning.
This Edible Cranberry Fluffy Slime is the perfect sensory activity for your Thanksgiving celebration! It’s tasty, easy to make, and will be a big hit with kids. This recipe works fine motor skills while encouraging creative playfulness in everyone who tries it—whether they love cranberries or not (trust me; you’ll want some!).
Enjoy some stretchy, slimy fun this Thanksgiving! Save your pumpkin seeds this fall when scooping out your pumpkins to add them to this fun, jiggly pumpkin slime. It’s made with a saline contact solution, glue, and baking soda, so it’s straightforward to make.
Get ready for the best time of year with this Montessori-inspired unit study! Learn about pumpkins, their life cycle, and other interesting facts while having fun.
With activities like graphing, number puzzles, a pumpkin song, and a pumpkin investigation activity, your kids will soon be experts on these fabulous gourds. Scoop up our All About Pumpkins Unit Study now so you can share these great learning opportunities with your little ones!
This gratitude activity is the perfect way to include thankfulness and gratitude every day in November! A simple and natural Thankful Tree you and your family will enjoy creating and looking at this fall season.
Thanksgiving Theme Lesson Plan for Preschool and Kindergarten
Learn all about the turkey life cycle, embark on Mayflower STEM activities, make fall recipes, and so much more.
Thanksgiving STEM Activities for Kids
Dancing Acorns Experiment from teachingideas.ca: All you need for this simple experiment are some beads, water, and an antacid tablet. Will the beads sink or float once put in the water? Find out—and make them dance—in this fun activity.
Mayflower Science Activity from fantasticfunandlearning.com: This is a fun craft and science experiment in one. Design a boat using a recycled plastic cup, creating sails out of rectangles and trapezoids. See if your boat floats and whether or not boats are easier to move with or without sails.
Thanksgiving Science Ideas
Turkey Gobble Thanksgiving Science from mamasmiles.com: Did you know that the gobble sound that turkeys make is the result of membrane vibration? Create your own membrane to produce a turkey sound using a paper towel tube, wax paper, and a few other materials you probably already have around the house.
Stone Soup Science Activity from booksandgiggles.com: You’ve probably heard the Stone Soup folktale where some travelers ask for ingredients to add to their delicious stone soup that they’ll share with everyone once finished. Experiment to see if stones add any flavor to soup. Will it taste the same or different? Record your observations on the printable. Please make sure the rocks are clean well before adding them to the soup!
Thanksgiving Science and STEM Activities
Learning About Feathers from apinchofperfect.com: With turkey season in full swing, it’s a great time to learn about feathers. Explore, investigate, and learn all the parts of a feather by labeling the diagram.
Dancing Cranberries from littlebinsforlittlehands.com: The dancing cranberries experiment is a super simple and fun way for kids of all ages to explore states of matter, density, gravity, and more! It’s like the dancing acorns experiment above but with soda instead of an antacid tablet!
Turkey Egg Drop from steamsational.com: If you’re looking for a fun STEM activity, try this. See if your eggs can be made to look like turkeys, and then develop an apparatus that will protect them during the drop test! It would make an excellent Thanksgiving day experiment or in class leading up to Turkey Day itself.
Lego Turkey from littlebinsforlittlehands.com: Build a turkey out of Lego bricks! This is an enjoyable activity for kids who love building with those little bricks, and the step-by-step instructions make it very easy.
Salt Crystal Pumpkins from steamsational.com: Even if you’ve made salt crystals before, this pumpkin version of the experiment is great fun. It’s a terrific activity for the classroom, with multiple chances for science lessons and important observations about crystal formation.
Floating Pumpkin STEM Challenge from teachingideas.ca: Kids will have a blast designing an apparatus to make their mini pumpkins float in the water. You’ll be amazed at the different designs kids can come up with even when all are provided with the same materials.
Thanksgiving Activities for Kids
What’s the Difference Between Yams and Sweet Potatoes from leftbraincraftbrain.com: Did you know that yams and sweet potatoes are different? A sweet potato is a root vegetable, while a yam is a tuber. Yams are also drier, starchier, and less sweet than sweet potatoes. Study them both (appearance, taste, texture, etc.) if you can find them both in your local markets!
Butter Chemistry from lemonlimeadventures.com: Making butter is a classic science experiment that kids of all ages enjoy. All you need is heavy cream, a jar or bag, and a wiggly kid to shake it all up to make your own butter.
Tracing the Veins of a Leaf from gosciencekids.com: How does water move through leaves? Find out how leaves are structured with this fun leaf vein tracing activity. You can make your leaves as colorful and decorative as you’d like!
Science Activities for Kids
Tin Foil Boat Challenge from jdaniel4smom.com: Make some peg doll Pilgrims and build a boat for them out of tin foil and other materials. This STEM challenge is simple because you can use materials readily available in your home, such as straws, tin foil, and paper.
Comparing Squash from teachbesideme.com: What could be more fun during the Thanksgiving season than cutting into several varieties of squash to see the differences between them? This experiment is done with butternut, acorn, and spaghetti squashes, but feel free to use whatever you have on hand.
Sprouting Sweet Potatoes from pre-kpages.com: Thanksgiving is the perfect season to sprout some sweet potatoes with the kids—no soil required! They’ll be so excited as they see the leaves form and the roots start to grow down into the water.
Corn vs. Popcorn Science from alittlepinchofperfect.com: Use the corn graph to study the differences between corn and popcorn. Which one is heavier? Do they sink or float? How many kernels can you fit into a cup?
Thanksgiving Activities for Kids
As the leaves change colors and temperatures drop, it’s time to start thinking about Thanksgiving! Here, we have provided some ideas for using science and STEM activities during Thanksgiving so that all of your family members — from preschoolers to adults— can join the fun.
Whether you are looking for ways to engage young children as they wait for the turkey to cook or want some clever approaches when teaching about Native American cultures in history class, these activities have something special for everyone!
Now that you’ve seen all these fun Thanksgiving science and STEM activities for kids don’t forget to pin the post. Happy holidays from our family to yours!
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