Thanksgiving Reading Activities Your Students Will Love

Incorporating relevant themes into your ELA lessons can make learning so much fun! These activities and resources will make it easy to bring Thanksgiving into your reading instruction. Here, you will find printable and digital activities, comprehension passages, mentor texts, and more!

It’s November! If you’re planning to incorporate Thanksgiving themes into your instruction this month, I have some reading activities that your students will love! Meanwhile, I will be talking about Thanksgiving reading activities that can be easily added to your plans without interruption of your standards instruction!

Stock Up on Thanksgiving Books in Your Classroom

Incorporating relevant themes into your ELA lessons can make learning so much fun! These activities and resources will make it easy to bring Thanksgiving into your reading instruction. Here, you will find printable and digital activities, comprehension passages, mentor texts, and more!

Firstly, books are great ways to bring Thanksgiving into your reading activities. As I have mentioned in previous posts, carrying a theme or topic across your instruction can enhance student engagement and motivation. Each of these 5 read alouds will keep your students engaged and can be used to practice common core skills. For example, cause and effect, problem and solution, and sequence of events are all skills that students will be able to put into practice with these stories!

Each book suggestion leads to an affiliate Amazon link for you.

Practice Comprehension from Different Media

Secondly, you can add different forms of media for your themed instruction. When learning about Thanksgiving, have opportunities for students to read texts, listen to audio clips, watch videos, and more! This is a great way for students to learn how to identify important information and practice note-taking.

A simple note-taking activity can be quick and effective! Give each of your students a set number of sticky notes (depending on the length of the media and the content you’d like them to be getting from it). For this BrainPop, Jr. video, students could be given 4 sticky notes. Then, it is their task to record important information from the video on their sticky notes. The sticky note will help students learn to only record the important information because they have limited space.

This activity can be done with any type of media. Try it with texts, audio recordings, videos, even art or illustrations!

Video Link: Brainpop Jr. Thanksgiving Video

Add Thanksgiving Themed Passages into Daily Activities

Incorporating relevant themes into your ELA lessons can make learning so much fun! These activities and resources will make it easy to bring Thanksgiving into your reading instruction. Here, you will find printable and digital activities, comprehension passages, mentor texts, and more!

In addition, you can switch out your comprehension activities for Thanksgiving-themed comprehension passages! Every balanced literacy block has an independent reading or standard skill practice time. During this time, switch out your materials for these Thanksgiving-themed fiction texts. They have comprehension questions and writing activities with each passage! So, your students will be able to continue their typical skill practice, with themed passages that keep them on topic and engaged. These activities come in both printable and digital formats, so they will be no-prep for you, too!

Resource Link: Thanksgiving Fiction Passages

Create a Fun Reading Comprehension Flip Book

Incorporating relevant themes into your ELA lessons can make learning so much fun! These activities and resources will make it easy to bring Thanksgiving into your reading instruction. Here, you will find printable and digital activities, comprehension passages, mentor texts, and more!

For a more hands-on activity, consider including a Thanksgiving-themed reading flip book! This reading “craftivity” will have students reading, writing, sorting, answering, coloring, cutting, and more! Students love these reading flip books because they make learning fun! Plus, the craft can be displayed around the classroom to show students’ learning and growth!

Flip Book Link: Thanksgiving Flip Book

Use Standards-Based Passages to Practice Skills

Finally, if you’re looking for more all-inclusive Thanksgiving reading activities, this Thanksgiving ELA set may be right for you! These themed ELA resources have practice activities for each of the ELA domains, not just reading! You will find passages and practice activities for Reading Informational and Reading Literature. Plus, Partner and Independent Activities for Writing, Speaking & Listening, and Language. You will be able to print and go with these fun and functional pages. Carry the theme across your ELA plans without adding anything to your workload, and without having to eliminate anything from your balanced literacy block!

The image shows 1st & 2nd grade, but the 3rd & 4th-grade set (link below) also comes with reading passages.

ELA Link: Thanksgiving 1st & 2nd Grade ELA Activities

Here are a few Thanksgiving Reading Activities you may find useful:

Thanks for reading this week’s blog post!

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