Thanksgiving Trivia Game Project

This craft project is easy to do and the kids can help you. Print out Thanksgiving facts onto paper with your computer. Space them so that they are easy to cut out.

Have the kids cut each fact into a separate piece of paper.

Fold the facts in half and toss them in a basket. You can pass the basket around at the Thanksgiving dinner table and let everyone read a Thanksgiving fact.

To change this fun learning project you could put a question on each piece of paper. Write the answer on the back of the paper up side down. Fold it up and pass the basket around.

Here are some fun Thanksgiving facts that can be used for this project. You can easily turn them into Thanksgiving trivia questions. Some facts are simple fun while others teach historical lessons about the first Thanksgiving. Remember to mix in some of the fun and interesting did you know facts; this will make this project fun for everyone.

1. Turkeys can drown if they look up when it is raining.

2. A spooked turkey can run at speeds up to 20 miles per hour. They can also break into flight approaching speeds between 50-55 mph in a matter of seconds.

3. The first Thanksgiving celebration can be traced back to the Plymouth Pilgrims in the fall of 1621.

4. The first Thanksgiving feast was held to thank the Lord for sparing the lives of the survivors of the Mayflower, who landed at Plymouth Rock on December 11, 1620. The survivors included four adult women and almost forty percent children.

5. The Wampanoag chief Massasoit and ninety of his tribesmen were also invited to the first Thanksgiving feast. Governor William Bradford invited them for helping the Pilgrims surviving and teaching them the skills of cultivating the land.

6. The celebration in 1621 lasted for three days and included games and food.

7. The president to proclaim the first 'National Day of Thanksgiving' in 1789 was George Washington.

8. Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, campaigned to make Thanksgiving a National Holiday in 1827 and succeeded.

9. Abraham Lincoln announced Thanksgiving to be national holiday in his proclamation on October 3, 1863.

10. The 'wishbone' of the turkey is used in a good luck ritual on Thanksgiving Day.

11. Puritans of Mayflower used to drink Beer.

12. The first American Thanksgiving was celebrated in 1621, to commemorate the harvest reaped by the Plymouth Colony after a harsh winter.

13. In 1621 Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of Thanksgiving.

14. The colonists celebrated it as a traditional English harvest feast, to which they invited the local Wampanoag Indians.

15. Days of Thanksgiving were celebrated throughout the colonies after fall harvests. All thirteen colonies did not, however, celebrate Thanksgiving at the same time until October 1777.

16. George Washington was the first president to declare the holiday, in 1789.

17. By the mid-1800s, many states observed a Thanksgiving holiday.

18. Sarah J. Hale lobbied for a national Thanksgiving holiday, which is what led to our current holiday.

19. During the Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln, looking for ways to unite the nation, discussed the subject with Hale. In 1863 he gave his Thanksgiving Proclamation, declaring the last Thursday in November a day of Thanksgiving.

20. In 1939, 1940, and 1941 Franklin D. Roosevelt, seeking to lengthen the Christmas shopping season, proclaimed Thanksgiving the third Thursday in November. Controversy followed, and Congress passed a joint resolution in 1941 decreeing that Thanksgiving should fall on the fourth Thursday of November, where it remains.