We're excited for you to bring easy Thanksgiving activities for kids into your classroom with the hands-on lesson plans, outdoor activities, and engaging visuals in Food and Climate: Thanksgiving Activities for K-2. Deepen your students' understanding of Earth systems and the greenhouse gas emissions of food, while incorporating themes of sustainability and climate action into your classroom. Explore SubjectToClimate.org to find K-2 resources on food, climate change education, and more!
Food and Climate Change: Thanksgiving Activities For K-2
Thanksgiving dinner connects directly to climate change through the food systems that bring it to the table. This collection of Thanksgiving activities for K-2 covers food production, waste, and land use, and how each affects our changing climate and the ecosystems we depend on. Inside, you'll find lesson plans, games, videos, and worksheets across subjects — fun activities for kids ready to bring into your classroom this holiday season.
Explore this Guide
Lesson Plans for Thanksgiving
These food-themed and Thanksgiving lesson plans for grades K-2 cover every part of the food journey from the farm to your plate. Explore lessons on food production and climate science with hands-on activities to make these concepts accessible to our younger learners.
Food Origins: Science Lesson
In this lesson, students learn where food comes from and the importance of preserving Earth's natural resources and biodiversity.
More Food Lesson Plans
Students learn about composting and its benefits to Mother Earth in this SubjectToClimate lesson.
This lesson plan from Population Education includes a composting experiment that examines waste decomposition.
Students learn about the importance of bees as pollinators in our food systems.
Looking for More Free Teaching Tips, Bundles & Classroom Resources?
Games & Activities
Build your students’ understanding of climate and food in subtle, fun ways using interactive games, printable Thanksgiving activities for kids, and activities that help students connect what they are learning to the real-world impacts of climate change.
Rumble in the Jungle
In this short game, students can test what they know about what does and does not belong in their home compost bin. This could be a fun Thanksgiving activity to do with your kids when they return from break!
More Thanksgiving Games & Activities
In this perfect-for-Thanksgiving writing activity, students explore the foods they eat and where those foods come from.
Students will use these worksheets to practice identifying initial sounds in compost-themed words.
Students will use these printables to segment and count syllables in food and compost-themed words.
Videos & Books
Engage students with relevant discussions on food and global warming using visual storytelling resources. Find grade-level-appropriate videos, books, and read-aloud activities that will expand students’ climate literacy.
Tuyen's Tremendous Trash Tour
In this digital picture book, Tuyen and Earthly tour Vietnam and learn about food waste and its environmental impacts on surrounding habitats.
More Videos & Books for K-2
This animated video tells the story of a girl who cares for a sick bee and teaches students to protect pollinators.
This picture book tells the story of Andrea, Flavio, and Earthly as they explore sustainable farming in Brazil.
This lesson contains a read-along activity and a video about composting.
Resources from Our Partners
Looking to add more food lessons to your curriculum and Thanksgiving activities for K-2? Our partners have you covered! Check out these amazing resources from our partners, Center for Ecoliteracy and FoodCorps!
Enrichment Activities
These activities explore fruits and vegetables through taste testing, games, and movement.
Posters
This set of five posters is a great way to decorate and inform students about fruits and vegetables.
People Who Feed Us
In this lesson, students learn about where food comes from through a read-aloud activity.
Plant a Pizza Garden
In this lesson, students will learn what ingredients they can grow to make a pizza.
Next Steps
How to Use These Resources
Start with one of the Thanksgiving lesson plans to introduce where food comes from, then layer in games and activities. From there, pick and choose based on your available time and subject focus:
- For a full lesson: Pair the Food Origins lesson with the Composting or Protecting Bees follow-ups to build a complete food-to-climate arc across a few class periods.
- For a quick activity: Use Rumble in the Jumble as a standalone 10-15 minute compost sorting game, no prior lesson needed.
- For literacy time: Bring in the Writing Activity, Beginning Sounds, and Composting Syllables worksheets to reinforce climate vocabulary during ELA blocks.
- For read-aloud or circle time: Tuyen's Tremendous Trash Tour and the Videos & Books collection work well as standalone engagement hooks.
Check Out These Climate Change Explainers for More Background Knowledge
- Does Fertilizer Impact Climate Change? Learn more about the role fertilizers play in climate change.
- Does Climate Change Affect Agriculture? This article explores how food systems and agriculture relate to climate change.
- What Are Biofuels? Learn more about what biofuel is and its connection to climate change.
Teachers & Authors Featured in this Guide
Elizabeth Ward is a former K-3 and multi-age teacher with 12+ years in the classroom, a BS in Education from Oklahoma State University, and Oklahoma Elementary, Early Childhood, and TEFL certifications.
Dena James is an educator with 25+ years as a teacher, college instructor, and librarian, a PhD in Educational Leadership, and a focus on equity and systemic change, currently working in Eugene, Oregon.
Angelique Hammack has been a K-5 general and special education teacher since 2017 and holds an MA in Education from California State University, , an Education Specialist Credential, and CALTPA Multiple Subject Scorer certification.
Ghislaine Fandel is a former Science Communication Lead and Content Director at ClimateScience, a Miami climate activist, and a Thred Media writer covering the climate crisis.
Lisa Greenwood is a K-5 teacher with nine years of experience across all subjects, a Master's in Childhood Education from CUNY Hunter College, and NY certification in Childhood & Special Education.
