One of my favorite topics to cover in a preschool classroom during the month of November is turkeys! There are so many fun ways to incorporate this theme into your lesson plans! In this post, I’m going to share some engaging preschool turkey activities that you can use to put together a fun preschool unit for your students.

10 Fun Turkey Activities for Preschool
Putting together a themed week of learning for your preschool class can be a little bit overwhelming! A quick Pinterest or Google search puts hundreds of turkey activity ideas at your fingertips. That’s why I wanted to narrow it down to ten of my favorite turkey activities for preschool. These ideas address a wide range of academic readiness and developmental skills with a fun turkey twist!
1. All About Turkeys Anchor Chart
Give your students a chance to discuss what they already know about turkeys before diving into learning more about them! Then, as you read non-fiction text about turkeys together as a class, you can write down what you’re learning on an anchor chart. This is great to have on display throughout your turkey unit!
2. Turkey Life Cycle Activity
As part of learning all about turkeys, you can teach your students about the life cycle of turkeys. This hands-on activity allows students to put the stages of the turkey life cycle in order.
This is a helpful visual for young learners! It also gives students an opportunity for scissor skill practice as they cut out the circles for the different stages of the life cycle.
3. Interactive Read Aloud
An interactive read aloud is such a fun way to incorporate the turkey theme! Plus, students are able to practice a variety of comprehension strategies with these read aloud activities.
An engaging and age-appropriate book to read during turkey week is “Taylor the Thankful Turkey” by Sonica Ellis. This fun story follows the journey of Taylor the turkey as he visits his friends and gives them personalized gifts of gratitude.
Students can practice skills like making predictions as you read this story together as a class. For example, you could stop reading before Teddy Bear opens the door and ask your students what they think Taylor has in his basket for Teddy Bear. You can repeat this as you go through the story.
You could also review the characters from the story by identifying which ones were in the story and which ones weren’t.
4. Turkey Feast Dramatic Play
If you have a dramatic play center in your preschool classroom, this is a fun place to incorporate the turkey theme!
Students can put together their own turkey feast by setting the table and filling their plates. This encourages them to practice some of this seasonal vocabulary!
5. Turkey Fine Motor Activities
There are a lot of engaging ways to encourage students to practice fine motor skills with turkey-themed activities. For example, they can practice their tracing skills with a turkey tracks printable activity.
You can also combine fine motor practice with counting! This turkey activity has students place small stickers on each feather of the turkey to match the number. There are so many hand muscles at work as students peel and stick these small dots onto the turkey feathers!
Students can also fill up a counting chart by rolling small balls of play dough and adding them to the task card.
6. Turkey Feather Challenge
This challenge is always a hit with preschoolers! It’s a great way to combine fine motor and gross motor skill practice. After adding a turkey printable to a colander, students will work to add the feathers to the turkey by placing feathers into the holes of the colander.
To make this activity even more challenging and engaging, you can place the feathers some distance from the colander and invite students to travel to pick up the feathers in different ways. They could hop, skip, or bear crawl!
You could even have students try to keep a balloon held between their knees as they waddle their way to and from the colander.
7. Turkey Themed Experiments
There are many different experiments that you can use to learn more about turkeys. For example, students can discover why turkeys have curved beaks through an investigation. They can also use an experiment to learn more about how turkeys gobble.
8. Turkey STEM Challenge
A STEM challenge is another great addition to turkey week in your preschool classroom! Students can build a tree with snap cubes that will support five turkeys. You can use pompoms or any other small manipulatives you have on hand to represent the turkeys.
9. Number-O
Bingo with a turkey twist can help your students practice their number identification skills. As a number card is drawn, students will look at the choices on their card to find the same number. They can cover the numbers with turkey track tokens or any other small manipulatives you have on hand.
10. Turkey Math Mini Reader
Finally, students will love looking for a turkey on the loose with a printable math mini reader! On each page, students will look for the number of turkey tracks shown in the sentence and in the magnifying glass. This gives students the chance to practice identifying number words as well as the numerals. They can circle the turkey tracks and then color each page of the printable book.
Printable Turkey Activities for Preschool
All of the activities shared in this post (and more!) are included in one time-saving resource. I’ve compiled everything you need to have some turkey fun in your classroom! If you’d like to take a closer look at everything included in this Preschool Turkey Unit, you can find it in my TPT store.
Save These Preschool Turkey Activities
Be sure to save this post so you can come back to it later! Just add the pin below to your favorite preschool board on Pinterest. You’ll be able to quickly find these activities when you’re planning a week of turkey-themed learning in your preschool classroom.