Here are 50 Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids, sorted into 10 categories of 5, with the easiest question in each category first. Board 1 covers the 1621 harvest, the Mayflower, turkeys, Thanksgiving food and the holiday today. Board 2 is harder: the people who made Thanksgiving a national holiday, the laws, Wampanoag history, White House turkeys, and parades and football. Every answer comes from a museum, archive or government source, listed at the end.
Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids (grades 2 to 5)
Board 1 works as a whole-class game for second to fifth graders. The 100-point questions can be answered by most students; the 500-point ones are for the class experts.
The 1621 harvest
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | In what year did the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag share the harvest celebration remembered as the “First Thanksgiving”? | 1621 |
| 200 | For how many days did the Wampanoag guests stay? | Three days |
| 300 | About how many Wampanoag men came to the celebration? | About 90 |
| 400 | What did the Wampanoag men hunt and bring to the feast? | Five deer |
| 500 | What was the name of the Wampanoag leader, the Massasoit, who came? | Ousamequin |
The Mayflower
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | What was the name of the Pilgrims’ ship? | The Mayflower |
| 200 | How many passengers did the Mayflower carry? | 102 |
| 300 | How many days was the Mayflower at sea? | 66 days |
| 400 | What was the name of the baby born on the Mayflower during the voyage? | Oceanus (Oceanus Hopkins) |
| 500 | Which other ship had to stay behind because it leaked? | The Speedwell |
Turkeys
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | What sound does a male wild turkey make to attract females? | A gobble |
| 200 | Can wild turkeys fly? | Yes. They usually walk, but they can run and fly. |
| 300 | Can wild turkeys swim? | Yes, when they have to |
| 400 | Which state raises the most turkeys? | Minnesota |
| 500 | About how many turkeys will U.S. farms raise in 2026? | About 199 million |
Thanksgiving food
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Which state grows the most cranberries? | Wisconsin |
| 200 | Which state grows the second most cranberries? | Massachusetts |
| 300 | Cranberries are measured in barrels. How many pounds are in one barrel? | 100 pounds |
| 400 | In his account of fall 1621, which two kinds of fish did William Bradford name? | Cod and bass |
| 500 | Bradford wrote that there was “great store” of which big wild bird in 1621? | Wild turkeys |
The holiday today
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | On which day of the week is Thanksgiving in the United States? | Thursday |
| 200 | Which Thursday in November is Thanksgiving? | The fourth Thursday |
| 300 | What is the date of Thanksgiving in 2026? | Thursday, November 26 |
| 400 | Which NFL team started its Thanksgiving Day game tradition in 1934? | The Detroit Lions |
| 500 | Which country celebrated its Thanksgiving on Monday, October 12, 2026? | Canada |
Harder Thanksgiving trivia (grades 5 to 8)
Board 2 suits older students and makes a good review after a lesson on the history of the holiday. Some answers have two parts, so decide before you start whether half an answer earns the points.
Who’s who
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Which president’s 1863 proclamation set Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November? | Abraham Lincoln |
| 200 | Which magazine editor wrote to Lincoln in 1863 asking for a national Thanksgiving Day? | Sarah Josepha Hale |
| 300 | Sarah Josepha Hale also wrote which nursery rhyme? | “Mary Had a Little Lamb” |
| 400 | Who wrote the words of Lincoln’s 1863 Thanksgiving proclamation? | Secretary of State William Seward |
| 500 | Which president proclaimed the first Thanksgiving under the Constitution, in 1789? | George Washington |
Dates and laws
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Washington’s 1789 proclamation named which date as a day of thanksgiving? | Thursday, November 26, 1789 |
| 200 | Which president moved Thanksgiving one week earlier in 1939? | Franklin D. Roosevelt |
| 300 | Why did business owners want Thanksgiving a week earlier? | For a longer Christmas shopping season |
| 400 | In what year did Roosevelt sign the law making Thanksgiving the fourth Thursday in November? | 1941 |
| 500 | For about how many years did Sarah Josepha Hale campaign for a national Thanksgiving? | 36 years (1827 to 1863) |
Wampanoag history
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | What was the name of the Wampanoag village where the English built Plymouth? | Patuxet |
| 200 | What is the name for the diseases that killed many Native people along the coast from 1616 to 1619? | The Great Dying |
| 300 | In what month of 1621 did the Wampanoag and the English agree to an alliance? | April |
| 400 | Name one place where Wampanoag communities live today. | Mashpee, Aquinnah, Assonet, Chappaquiddick or Herring Pond, in Massachusetts |
| 500 | Which fall harvest festival do the Aquinnah Wampanoag hold? | Cranberry Day |
White House turkeys
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | Which president made the turkey pardon a yearly tradition, starting in 1989? | George H. W. Bush |
| 200 | Lincoln’s son Tad saved a turkey that was meant for which holiday dinner? | Christmas |
| 300 | In 1921, a turkey named Supreme II set off for the White House in what? | An airplane (it got airsick and finished the trip by train) |
| 400 | Which president was the first to get a turkey from the Poultry and Egg National Board and the National Turkey Federation? | Harry S. Truman |
| 500 | A raccoon sent to the White House for Thanksgiving became which first lady’s pet? | Grace Coolidge |
Parades and football
| Points | Question | Answer |
|---|---|---|
| 100 | In what year was the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade held in New York City? | 1924 |
| 200 | Which team beat the Detroit Lions in their first Thanksgiving game, in 1934? | The Chicago Bears, 19 to 16 |
| 300 | Which city’s NFL team has played on Thanksgiving almost every year since 1966? | Dallas (the Cowboys) |
| 400 | How many tickets were sold for the Lions’ first Thanksgiving game? | 26,000, sold out two weeks early |
| 500 | How many radio stations carried that 1934 game? | 94 |
How to play Thanksgiving trivia in class
- Make the teams. Split the class into 2 to 6 teams with the team randomizer, so every team gets a fair mix.
- Open a board. Press Play board 1 or Play board 2 above. The review game board opens with the questions loaded. If you already saved a game of your own there, it asks before replacing it.
- Go full screen and let teams take turns choosing a category and a value.
- Give thinking time. Count down 30 seconds for each answer on the classroom timer.
- Show the answer and award the points. The team with the most points when the board is empty wins.
Want to change a question? Edit the text box on the review game board: each line is one question, with the answer after the | sign. You can also print the questions and answers from there.
Why a trivia game works for review
Answering questions from memory helps students remember what they learned. The Institute of Education Sciences recommends using quizzes to bring students back to key content in its practice guide on organizing instruction and study (IES). A team trivia game is a low-stakes way to do that in the last days before the break. After the game, pick one category, like Wampanoag history, and ask students what surprised them.
For more ideas for the weeks before the break, see our Thanksgiving activities for kids.
Questions
What are good Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids?
Questions with short, checkable answers work best. For example: How many passengers did the Mayflower carry? (102.) How many days did the Wampanoag guests stay at the 1621 harvest celebration? (Three.) Which state raises the most turkeys? (Minnesota.) Board 1 above has 25 more for grades 2 to 5.
When was the first Thanksgiving?
The harvest celebration remembered as the “First Thanksgiving” took place at Plymouth in the fall of 1621, according to the two firsthand accounts the Pilgrim Hall Museum lists. George Washington proclaimed the first national day of thanksgiving under the Constitution for November 26, 1789, and the United States has celebrated Thanksgiving every year since Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation of 1863, the National Park Service says.
Why is Thanksgiving on a Thursday?
Washington named a Thursday in 1789, and Lincoln’s 1863 proclamation named the last Thursday of November. After President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday a week earlier in 1939, Congress fixed it as the fourth Thursday in November in a law Roosevelt signed on December 26, 1941 (National Archives).
How many questions should a classroom trivia game have?
A board of 5 categories with 5 questions each, 25 in all, gives every team several turns. The review game board holds up to 6 categories of 6. Each board on this page has 25 questions: play one, or both on different days.
Sources
- Pilgrim Hall Museum. The “First Thanksgiving”: the 1621 harvest, Edward Winslow’s letter and William Bradford’s account, the April 1621 alliance with Ousamequin, the Great Dying.
- Plimoth Patuxet Museums. Mayflower and Mayflower Compact: 102 passengers, 66 days at sea, the Speedwell, Oceanus Hopkins.
- Aaron Levin. A Closer Look at the Thanksgiving Tale. American Indian magazine, Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, Fall 2025: Patuxet, about 90 Wampanoag men, the Great Dying, Wampanoag communities today, Cranberry Day.
- National Park Service, Harpers Ferry National Historical Park. Pheasants, Grouse, and Allies: wild turkeys gobble, walk, run, fly and can swim.
- USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service. Turkeys Raised, released September 25, 2026: 199 million turkeys forecast for 2026; Minnesota 34.0 million.
- USDA Economic Research Service. Cranberry production forecast to land near five-year average in 2025: Wisconsin first, Massachusetts second, 100 pounds a barrel.
- National Park Service, Lincoln Home National Historic Site. Lincoln and Thanksgiving: Sarah Josepha Hale, William Seward, the first Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in 1924.
- Jessie Kratz. Thanksgiving as a Federal Holiday. Pieces of History, National Archives, November 20, 2023.
- 5 U.S.C. § 6103, Holidays: Thanksgiving Day, the fourth Thursday in November.
- White House Historical Association. History of White House Thanksgiving Traditions.
- Pro Football Hall of Fame. Thanksgiving and the NFL: the Lions since 1934, Dallas since 1966.
- Canada Revenue Agency. Public holidays: Thanksgiving Day, Monday, October 12, 2026.
- What Works Clearinghouse: Pashler, H., et al. (2007). Organizing Instruction and Study to Improve Student Learning. Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education.