This easy-prep Thanksgiving money activity is a playful way to practice counting a collection of coins.
Scroll down to grab your freebie and then make sure to hop over and snag our Place Value Cover Up for more math fun!
Getting Ready
Prepping this Thanksgiving money activity was quick and easy!
I printed the Thanksgiving food tags and coins for this activity on white cardstock and then I ran all the pieces through the laminator to give them extra durability. (I wanted to be able to use this Thanksgiving money activity year after year.)
Next, I cut along the solid black lines to separate the food tags and coins and placed all of the pieces in a 4 x 6 photo box for easy storage.
Finally, I printed out the recording sheet for each child so students would be able to write the correct coin combinations.
Thanksgiving Money Activity
This center was great to use as a small group activity! (I plan on adding it as an individual math center as well when kids are ready to complete it on their own.)
To start, we reviewed the name and value of each coin. I put the pennies, nickels, and dimes in separate piles. We looked at the front and back of each coin and talked about the characteristics of each one.
Then I spread out the Thanksgiving food tags on the table and asked a volunteer to pick one of them.
The first student chose the pumpkin pie card which cost 14 cents.
He pulled together a dime and four pennies. 
I asked him to count the coins aloud, reminding him to start with the coin that had the greatest value.
The child started with the dime and pointed to each coin as he counted on: “10, 11, 12, 13, 14… 14 cents!”
We worked through one more Thanksgiving tag as a group before I allowed the students to work on their own feast.
When all of the students had their food and coins matched, I gave each child a pencil and recording sheet.
The children drew in the coins next to each food by drawing circles and writing the value of each coin inside them. Then they wrote the total value off to the side.
Students loved selecting and buying items for their very own Thanksgiving feast!
Grab Your Set
Ready to add a Thanksgiving feast to your math centers? Scroll below and click the blue button to download your freebie.
Then make sure to hop over and snag our Place Value Cover Up for more fun!
Super cute and very practical idea. However, just as with other downloads from this site, the pictures wind up with a black box behind them, obscuring part of the activity and wasting ink.
Hi Megan,
Thank you so much for reaching out. I am sorry you are having trouble printing. We never want that.
Here are a few tips:
Please make sure you have the most recent version of Adobe Reader Other, it is free and is the only reader that will ensure that our products and freebies download and print correctly.
It is also important that you are trying to print from a desktop or laptop and not a mobile device as that sometimes causes this issue.
Finally, if you’re on a Mac, you can try using the “Print As Image” option. That usually resolves the problem.
Let me know if I can be of any further help.
Warmly,
Ashley // Happiness Ambassador
How can I print this cute thanksgiving activity?
I put these food pictures around the kitchen, ex: mashed potatoes on the mixer, etc. our grandson had so much fun he did the activity several times! I look forward to putting it up again this year! Thank you for so much learning fun!!!
I’m trying to download this cute activity, but nothing happens when I click the blue download button. I’ve had this problem on other sites where you’re supposed to click to download. Any suggestions? Thanks!
I am attempting to download this great activity, but nothing happens when I click the blue download button. Even why I attempt to right click it so that it will open on another tab, my options are only “save image”/copy image”. Is there anywhere else this can be downloaded from? Thank you!
Hi Lauren, the link has been reconnected and is ready for you to download now! Happy Fall!
Hi Trish, the link has been reconnected and is ready for you to download now! Happy Fall!