10 Fun Thanksgiving ESL Games and Activities + Free Thanksgiving Poster

Looking for fun Thanksgiving ESL games and activities for your English classroom? Thanksgiving is a great opportunity to bring seasonal fun into your lessons while helping students practice English through speaking, vocabulary, creativity, and interaction.

Thanksgiving is traditionally a time to express gratitude, spend time with family, and enjoy a special meal together. But you can also bring the spirit of Thanksgiving into your ESL classroom!

These Thanksgiving ESL activities for students are easy to prepare, classroom-friendly, and suitable for different ages and English levels. Most importantly, they encourage students to speak, move, interact, and use English naturally rather than simply completing worksheets.

And if you’re looking for a little extra classroom decoration, we’ve also included a free Thanksgiving vocabulary poster at the end of this article.

1. Thanksgiving Vocabulary Match

Focus: Vocabulary
Level: Beginner
Time: 10–15 minutes
Materials: Thanksgiving picture cards and word cards

How to Play

Prepare Thanksgiving picture cards and vocabulary cards and place them separately.

1. Put students into pairs or small groups.
2. Give each group a set of picture cards and word cards.
3. Students match each picture with the correct word.
4. When they finish, ask students to say each word aloud.
5. For extra speaking practice, ask students to make a simple sentence with some of the words.

Target vocabulary: turkey, pumpkin, pie, corn, family, dinner, autumn, leaves, gratitude, etc. Extra challenge: Remove one picture and ask students to remember which word is missing.

2. Guess the Thanksgiving Word

Focus: Speaking + Vocabulary
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 10–15 minutes
Materials: Thanksgiving word cards

This simple guessing game is a great way to get students speaking.

How to Play

One student takes a word card without showing it to the other students.

The student gives clues about the word.

For example:

“It is food.”
“It is orange.”
“People make pie with it.”

The other students try to guess:

“Pumpkin!”

You can make the game more challenging by requiring students to give three, four, or five clues before their classmates can guess.

3. Thanksgiving Would You Rather?

Focus: Speaking
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 10–15 minutes
Materials: Question cards

Would You Rather? questions are an easy way to encourage students to express preferences and give reasons.

Try questions such as:

• Would you rather eat turkey or pumpkin pie?
• Would you rather cook Thanksgiving dinner or clean the kitchen?
• Would you rather celebrate Thanksgiving with your family or your friends?
• Would you rather eat dessert first or dinner first?
• Would you rather make a Thanksgiving cake or a Thanksgiving pie?

Students choose one option and explain their answers.

For example:

“I would rather eat pumpkin pie because I love sweet food.”

Extension: Ask students to find someone who chose the opposite answer and compare their reasons.

4. What Am I Thankful For?

Focus: Speaking + Personalization
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 10–15 minutes
Materials: Paper or worksheets

Thanksgiving is a perfect opportunity for students to practice talking about things that are important to them.

Ask students to write three to five things they are thankful for.

For example:

I am thankful for my family.
I am thankful for my friends.
I am thankful for my teacher.
I am thankful for my home.
I am thankful for my pets.

After writing, students share their answers with a partner or small group.

Classroom Extension: Thankful Tree

Create a large tree on the classroom wall. Students write something they are thankful for on paper leaves and attach them to the tree.

This creates a simple Thanksgiving classroom display while giving students an opportunity to practice English.

5. Thanksgiving Scavenger Hunt

Focus: Vocabulary + Speaking
Level: Beginner
Time: 15–20 minutes
Materials: Thanksgiving picture or word cards

Turn your classroom into a Thanksgiving vocabulary hunt!

How to Play

1. Hide Thanksgiving vocabulary cards around the classroom.
2. Put students into pairs or small teams.
3. Students search for the hidden cards.
4. When they find a card, they record the word.
5. Continue until they have found all the cards.

To add a speaking component, students must report what they found.

Teacher:

“What did you find?”

Student:

“I found a turkey!”

For an extra challenge, ask students to describe the object before saying its name.

6. Thanksgiving Taboo

Focus: Speaking + Describing
Level: Intermediate
Time: 15 minutes
Materials: Thanksgiving Taboo cards

This is a fun way to practice describing vocabulary without using the most obvious words.

How to Play

A student takes a card and must describe the target word without saying the forbidden words.

Example

Target word: TURKEY

Forbidden words:

• bird
• Thanksgiving
• food

The student might say:

“It is an animal. People often eat it during a special holiday in November.”

The other students try to guess the word:

“Turkey!”

This activity is particularly useful for practicing descriptive language, synonyms, and circumlocution.

7. Thanksgiving Cooking Mistakes

Focus: Cooking Vocabulary + Speaking
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 15 minutes
Materials: Sentence cards

Give students funny sentences containing a cooking mistake. Their job is to find the mistake and correct it.

For example:

Fry the turkey in a glass of water.

Students correct the sentence:

Bake the turkey in the oven.

More examples:

Boil the pumpkin pie.
Chop the soup.
Fry the water.
Bake the salad.
Grill the ice cream.

Students can work individually, in pairs, or in teams.

Make It a Competition

Read a sentence aloud. The first team to identify and correct the mistake gets a point.

This makes a simple Thanksgiving ESL activity much more energetic and memorable.

8. Design Your Thanksgiving Dinner

Focus: Speaking + Creativity
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 20–30 minutes
Materials: Paper or worksheet

Let students create their own Thanksgiving dinner menu.

My Thanksgiving Dinner

Main dish: __________________

Side dish: __________________

Dessert: __________________

Drink: __________________

Students then present their menus to the class.

For example:

“For my Thanksgiving dinner, I would like turkey, corn, pumpkin pie, and apple juice.”

Extension

Put students into pairs. Each student presents their menu, and their partner chooses one dish they would like to try and explains why.

For more advanced students, ask them to create a restaurant-style Thanksgiving menu with prices and descriptions.

9. Thanksgiving Word Scramble

Focus: Vocabulary + Spelling
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 10–15 minutes
Materials: Word scramble worksheet or cards

Give students Thanksgiving words with the letters mixed up.

Example you can use:

Thanksgiving Word Scramble

1. KREUTY → TURKEY
2. KIPNMPU → PUMPKIN
3. YFALIM → FAMILY
4. IPE → PIE
5. NROC → CORN
6. NREDIN → DINNER
7. NUTMAU → AUTUMN
8. SALVEA → LEAVES
9. TSAHARV → HARVEST
10. DRAETGUIT → GRATITUDE
11. THFAULNK → THANKFUL
12. CANERRYBR → CRANBERRY

Students can work individually or in teams.

Make It a Team Challenge

The first team to unscramble all the words correctly wins.

For younger learners, add pictures as clues. For stronger students, remove the pictures and use more challenging Thanksgiving vocabulary.

10. Thanksgiving Find Someone Who…

Focus: Speaking + Question Formation
Level: Beginner–Intermediate
Time: 15–20 minutes
Materials: Find Someone Who worksheet

Get your students moving around the classroom with a Thanksgiving-themed Find Someone Who activity.

Students walk around the room and ask their classmates questions to complete the worksheet.

Find Someone Who…

Find someone who…	Name
likes pumpkin pie	__________
likes cooking	__________
has a big family	__________
likes turkey	__________
enjoys family dinners	__________
is thankful for their friends	__________

Students can ask questions such as:

“Do you like pumpkin pie?”

“Do you enjoy cooking?”

“Do you have a big family?”

“What are you thankful for?”

Encourage students to talk to several different classmates rather than completing the activity with only one partner.

Extension

After the activity, ask students to report their findings:

“Maria likes pumpkin pie.”

“David has a big family.”

“Three students are thankful for their friends.”

This adds extra speaking and reporting practice to the activity.

How to Make Thanksgiving ESL Activities More Fun

You don’t need complicated materials or hours of preparation to create an engaging Thanksgiving English lesson.

The key is to give students opportunities to move, speak, think, create, and interact.

You can also adjust each activity according to your students’ English level.

For beginner students, use simple vocabulary, pictures, sentence starters, and short questions.

For intermediate students, add follow-up questions, longer descriptions, explanations, and discussion.

For younger learners, you can also combine these games with Thanksgiving coloring activities, vocabulary posters, drawing tasks, and simple crafts.

The goal is not simply to teach Thanksgiving vocabulary. It is to use the Thanksgiving theme as a fun context for students to practice real English communication.

Free Thanksgiving Poster for Your ESL Classroom

Looking for a simple way to introduce Thanksgiving vocabulary to your students?

We’ve prepared a free Thanksgiving vocabulary poster that you can use in your classroom.

Students can use the poster to learn and review common Thanksgiving words before playing the games and activities in this lesson.

The poster is:

• High quality and classroom-friendly
• Easy to download
• Suitable for different student ages
• Printable in different sizes
• Useful for vocabulary review and classroom decoration

Download the Free Thanksgiving Poster

You can display the poster in your classroom, use it as a vocabulary reference, or turn it into part of your Thanksgiving speaking games.

Explore More Thanksgiving ESL Resources

Want to bring even more Thanksgiving fun into your English classroom?

Explore our collection of Thanksgiving ESL resources, classroom posters, vocabulary materials, and printable teaching resources at Radtutor Gallery.

Our educational posters are designed to make your classroom more engaging while helping students discover new English vocabulary and useful information through attractive visuals.

Whether you’re preparing a Thanksgiving lesson, decorating your ESL classroom, or looking for new teaching materials, you’ll find plenty of ideas to make your lessons more interactive and enjoyable.

Explore Thanksgiving ESL Resources at Radtutor Gallery and make your classroom ready for Thanksgiving!