Thanksgiving Math Lessons: Count Your Blessings!

It's the holiday season, which can lead to some fun with numbers. You can count up the number of things you have to be thankful for this holiday season, or the number of people you plan to celebrate with. But standing on a scale can remind you of the not so much fun side of Thanksgiving math, counting up the extra pounds after those big family meals. While that type of math can be a bit depressing, the knowledge of the abundance of blessings is always a number that is appreciated.

The History of Thanksgiving is a compellation of all things turkey-related. The website, designed for the History Channel, has fun facts, and historical, parade, and football information. It's a good way to conduct a broad overview of the holiday, before digging into the meat and potatoes of the math activities. Thanksgiving on the Net is another great website that has good resources and links. It compares the Canadian Thanksgiving (the second Monday in October) to American Thanksgiving, among other activities.

Thanksgiving Math Lessons can be broken down into different sub groups. Graphing can be particularly effective for this holiday. Turkey Graphs  is a visual representation of data, but in a pictorial style. While all graphs are illustrated depictions of statistical facts, glyphs expand the concept. The lesson has children make a turkey that represents their thanksgiving meal choices and interests. A Thanksgiving Survey has children conduct surveys and put data into a bar graph. A meal is prepared according to the most popular items. This is a great tool to teach children about meal planning.

Thanksgiving fractions can be incorporated into real-world humanitarian activities. Many families have decided that the best way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to serve their community. Homeless and Soup Kitchen directory has listings of all local city and state shelters. Children can go and interview cooks at shelters or kitchens.  They can discover how chefs use regular recipes to feed large numbers of people. It's also is a good way to have students practice key interviewing skills.

Thanksgiving math worksheets are plentiful and varied. Thanksgiving themed math problems has several word problems using time departures and arrivals. This is a great way to go off the sheet and have the children figure out when grandma and grandpa are coming. It relieves parents from answering the question, "When will they be here?" for the millionth time. Thanksgiving Mayflower Order is a worksheet that has children put numbers in order. Parents can discuss how many people started on the daring and dangerous journey across the Atlantic, and how many people actually arrived in the New World. This could be upsetting to younger children, but it shows what men and women were willing to risk in the name of freedom.

Thanksgiving Math Lessons:

Thanksgiving Placemats: A Community Service Project has children make placemats that would brighten someone's day. These can be given to nursing homes or shelters. The activity could also be used at home and blessings could be written on each strip.

You are the Historian: Investigating the First Thanksgiving has children collect data from the past. This is a great instructional tool to show how historic facts are gathered and compiled.

Thanksgiving Then and Now has students make a Venn diagram of the past and the present. They identify what has changed and what has remained the same. Children compose a brief essay as a companion piece.