Thanksgiving is of course a very important time in the United States, and one of the biggest things about this time is to educate students about its traditions and history.
So, if you teach High School students, you might be wondering how you can incorporate projects into this.
Luckily, we’ve got all the answers you need. In this comprehensive list and guide, you will find some excellent ideas for Thanksgiving projects you can set for your High School students.
Ready to find out more? Then read below for some great ideas!
Thanksgiving Projects For High School Students
So, without further delay – let’s dive into the best Thanksgiving Projects your High School students could get involved with!
One of the best ways you can get High School students involved with anything is to make the project relatable.
By bringing Thanksgiving history to their age level, you can inform and inflame their minds in a very fun way.
Teen Pilgrim Magazine can be set as a classroom sized project, or you can split the class into teams.
The students will act as though they are working for a real magazine, but they have to imagine they are living as pilgrims.
Essentially, articles for sports, fashion and social affairs (as if they are living in the era) will be required, along with advertising, digital design, artwork and so much more – as you would find with a modern teen magazine.
Students will need to research the pilgrim era to find out how to proceed, but they will also learn other things like business management, team work, digital marketing, digital media, writing skills and plenty more.
Largely, Thanksgiving is a time when we all come together and inform ourselves and others what we are thankful or grateful for.
We reflect on how lucky we are and think of those less fortunate than ourselves.
High School students do not always recognize this importance, so it’s always a great idea to get this project started.
You can do this as a classroom or you can split the class depending on the resources you have available to you.
A blank wall at the school (or a very large canvas) will be used for the students to paint a large mural for the things they are grateful for.
If you are using multiple groups, you will vote on which group has the best mural.
It’s wise to come up with a “scoring” system for how this project will be graded. For example, you could consider factors like:
Aesthetics
Relevance
Team work
Clear indication of research
Not only will this project remind the students of one of the major points of the holiday, but it will also get them working as a team, develop their artistic skills and get them to think independently.
Black Friday has become more and more well known, not just in the United States but all around the world. It in many ways has been hijacked by corporations as a money making opportunity.
But this isn’t the point of Black Friday and it’s important that High School students understand what Black Friday is, was, etc.
Ask your students to write about what Black Friday means to them and what it should be.
Ask the students to consider workers during this time who tirelessly continue when they would likely want to be home with their families, like emergency responders, the President and the military.
This project can be performed in groups or you can set it individually.
The project will get the students thinking about their own lives, along with others – but it also gets them to research independently about the Holiday’s history and how it has evolved over the years.
The vast majority of people will be aware of The Price Is Right and how it works, but even if they are not – it’s a very easy game to learn, and your project will be the Thanksgiving edition!
You will get groups of your students to bring in items you may use at Thanksgiving, like food items, and then students will be tasked with recreating The Price Is Right set – with one student acting as presenter (this can be rotated).
The idea is to get every student involved in this project, and try to understand the price of things in the real world at the same time.
It’s a great way to educate the students but also a great way to have fun at the same time.
You will need to think carefully about how you grade this project though.
It’s wise to think about the student’s involvement, if a student has shown evidence of independent research and how well the students work as a team.
It’s very important during Thanksgiving to think of others and especially those less fortunate.
Therefore, one of the best Thanksgiving projects to set High School students is a fundraiser. You will allow your students, split into groups, to raise money in any way they can.
They should devise a plan and denote each member a duty.
These groups will then be set a specific amount of time to raise as much money as possible to be donated for a worthy cause. The winning group will have raised the most amount of money.
However, you will also grade the students based on their plans, how well they have worked together, how unique their fundraising ideas were and anything else you may wish to include.
Give your students some basic ideas like a canned food drive or sponsored walks etc. and see how well they perform.
It’s a great project that can be a lot of fun, but overall it is for an excellent cause!
Thanksgiving of course has a strong focus on food, so if you have a High School class for home economics, then one of the easiest and funnest projects to set for them is a Thanksgiving food project.
There are a few ways you can do this. Perhaps the best way to do this though is to divide the class into sections such as meat, sides and dessert.
These groups will then make some well known Thanksgiving food items and collectively put them together as a meal.
You can grade the students on their teamwork skills and how well they have made their food products.
There’s no need to use a turkey or anything like that – instead you can set students cheaper and more basic options.
The real goal here is for the students to understand how to work together and how everything fits when a group is pulling in the same direction.
A very good project to think about is using the kindergarten with your High School students. It’s incredibly simple to do.
All you need to do is agree with the kindergarten teacher, Principle and parents for each of your students to be a reading buddy to a kindergarten kid.
This should be done in the classroom environment for supervision purposes, and you can grade your High School students based on how well they deal with the kindergarten students, how well their student performs over time etc.
This type of project not only teaches your students how to be charitable, but it also gives them an indication of responsibility and how it feels to teach.
This is an important skill in the future, especially if they want to be an educator, or when they eventually have their own kids.
Finally on our list we have a very basic, but very effective project you can set your kids.
All you need to do is divide your classroom into groups and tell them to create quiz questions, which they will ask the other groups when the deadline comes.
You can grade the students based on their research, how well their quiz runs, how well they engage with the other group during the quiz and their own knowledge.
There’s not a lot of preparation or resources required for this project, so it’s a very handy project to set if you are short on time.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’ll now answer some of your most common questions.
Do I Need A Budget For These Projects?
Not really – you can set up most of these projects for free, but it will be useful if you do have a small budget.
Should I Grade These Projects?
It’s a good idea to grade these projects as it gives your students an incentive. But you do not have to.
Final Thoughts
Thanksgiving is a great time of year and a great opportunity to educate your students. Hopefully, you can use some of our ideas!
Hi, my name is Helena Waters and I was a teacher for 40 years before retiring last year.
During my time as a teacher I dedicated the majority of it to making classrooms as fun as possible, with educational parties, fun activities, and low cost entertainment that made the children excited about learning.
I taught children of all ages, from preschoolers to high school students. Now, with the pandemic having uprooted everything that children once knew about school and learning, I think that the need for my ideas is bigger than ever.
That is why I created School Sparks, a place in which I can write down and share all of my ideas on how to get students excited about going to school again. I hope that you’ll find some useful within a school setting, even at home too!
