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Fall and Thanksgiving STEM Activities
Take advantage of the season with these Fall and Thanksgiving STEM activities. The supplies listed for these projects are probably already sitting around your house, waiting to be used. From making fresh butter in a jar to leaf chromatography with fall leaves, you will have plenty to keep your kids busy, especially during Thanksgiving break.
You could also set up an area for all of the kids on Thanksgiving day where they can conduct science experiments, build candy structures, or make an apple volcano. Set out supplies for a few different activities and find out just how fun STEM activities can be for kids of all ages.
While it’s fun to use holidays like Thanksgiving to mark these special times of the year, it’s also important to teach our children the thankfulness and gratitude that is the real reason for the holiday. Here are some creative gratitude activities for kids you can quickly incorporate into your Thanksgiving STEM lesson plans. These are creative, playful activities that make thankfulness something kids actually want to do instead of just hear about.
Related post: Easy Ways To Add STEM To Your Homeschool
Easy and Affordable Fall and Thanksgiving STEM Activities
New for 2025! Turkey feather science, which also covers anatomy, life cycle, and turkey sounds. Enjoy a virtual microscope lab and make a turkey clucker (and learn about sound.)
Make butter and study the chemistry behind the process. Includes free printable. It also gives the kids a chance to make something of their very own that they can serve at Thanksgiving dinner. Yum!
Make a working battery and run a clock using cranberries, gourds, and pumpkins!
Extract DNA from a pumpkin This is far easier to do than it sounds! (or gourd, or cranberries, try a few different options that are available at Thanksgiving time.)
Fall-themed STEM building challenges using candy pumpkins (or play dough, marshmallows, or gum drops.)
The November Free Monthly Science Activity Calendar has a list of over 20 free resources for K-12 covering science and math events that happen in November.
Add some Thanksgiving-themed math activities (We love the Thanksgiving Bingo the most!)
Try these holiday/winter-themed 2D and 3D STEM cards and mats.
Candy corn chemistry – free printable with pages for younger and older students
Corn Cob Lab: Cool activities using corn on the cob.
Cranberry Raft STEM Challenge – This is so much fun! From Only Passionate Curiosity
Using sugar to calibrate your oven: This is a fun, tasty, way to talk about not only the science that is involved in cooking but also the states of matter and phase transitions!
Chemistry of Thanksgiving Food: The food on the Thanksgiving table doesn’t have to just be a tasty meal—it can teach us chemistry too. This site has several activities for the high school-aged learner.
Magic Dancing Corn Thanksgiving Science Activity: All you need is some popcorn, a glass jar, vinegar, and a few other household ingredients to perform this magic trick in your kitchen. A great activity that you everyone in the family can enjoy thanks to the chemical reaction between vinegar and baking soda.
Autumn STEM Tracing the Veins of a Leaf: Take a walk on Thanksgiving day and collect some of those colorful leaves. Once the leaves are back at home and the kids have picked their favorite ones, bring out the paint and crayons and let them trace the veins. It makes a very unique piece of art as well as teaching kids to take a closer look at everyday things around them. Take this activity a step further and use it to teach kids about the biology of a tree.
Cranberry interactive pages and life cycle activities from Ocean Spray.
Apple Volcanoes: Turn apples into erupting volcanoes. Add a little dye to the vinegar and you will have a really colorful explosion.
Turkey Baster Relay Race: Use a turkey baster and some feathers to start a relay race with all of your guests. Give this activity a STEM spin by talking about force and energy.
Five Little Pumpkins STEM Activity: Keep the younger kiddos busy with this adorable pumpkin activity based on the nursery rhyme. I love this activity because it teaches kids about building and problem-solving.
Candy Corn Catapults: Fling candy through the air with a catapult that is built out of a few items laying around the house. Build one for each kid in the family and see who can get their candy corn to take the longest leap. So much fun!
Fall, Sink, or Float STEM Activity: Gather some pine cones, apples, and leaves to test in a bin of water. Do they fall, sink, or float?
Hot Chocolate Science Experiment: Turn hot cocoa into a science experiment without any extra supplies. All you need is some cocoa, water, mugs, and water.
Salt and Ice Activity: Does Salt Melt Ice?: Roads start to become icy this time of year as winter starts to roll in. Conduct this science experiment with frozen chunks of ice (made in the shape of hands thanks to some rubber gloves!) to find the answer to this question; Does salt melt ice?
How to Make Fizzing Lemonade: Kids will have no problem using this STEM activity to turn their beverage into a science experiment.
Pumpkin Tunnel STEM Challenge: Use toy race tracks and carved pumpkin to make a tunnel for toy cars. What a simple way to get kids to think outside of the box.
Smashing Turkeys: the New Egg Drop Experiment: Using items found around the house, can the turkey (the egg) be protected?
SAVOR THE SCIENCE: THE POLYMERIZATION OF CRANBERRY SAUCE: This is a great opportunity during the holidays for kids to experience everyday science through cooking. This experiment can get your older kids involved in the meal preparation.
Cranberry Spy Juice: Add another bag of cranberries to the shopping list so the kids can decode secret messages of Thanks! This is a great, fun activity to incorporate science into your holiday!
Bending Turkey Bones: This is a cool experiment about the need for calcium.
Sweet Potato Investigation: Create a sweet potato jungle!
Cranberry Science: Cranberry pockets.
Fall and Thanksgiving Art Activities to Turn Your STEM Time into STEAM Time!
I have an artsy child who loves science, and when I incorporate an art activity into our science plan (turning STEM into STEAM), she becomes super-engaged. Additionally, incorporating an art component into science encourages experimentation. This is the same kind of creative thinking scientists use when testing ideas. It teaches that “mistakes” are just part of discovering something new.
Also, art makes learning memorable. A colorful craft tied to a science topic becomes a visual anchor; kids remember the lesson because they built it.
Check out these pumpkin, Fall, and Thanksgiving art resources. Many also link to other related resources on the site:
- Gratitude Pumpkin activity from Coffee and Carpool. Love the idea of using a real pumpkin, but you can use their printable too! Turn this into a STEAM activity by having your children measure and weigh each pumpkin, too!
- This paper roll turkey craft from 3 Dinosaurs is adorable and is a super-engaging way to help preschoolers learn about colors, mixing colors, and circles! Also, check out the link to the turkey life cycle resource!
More Thanksgiving and Fall Science
Why Do Leaves Change Color? Free unit with lots of printables!
I hold a master’s degree in child development and early education and am working on a post-baccalaureate in biology. I spent 15 years working for a biotechnology company developing IT systems in DNA testing laboratories across the US. I taught K4 in a private school, homeschooled my children, and have taught on the mission field in southern Asia. For 4 years, I served on our state’s FIRST Lego League tournament Board and served as the Judging Director. I own thehomeschoolscientist and also write a regular science column for Homeschooling Today Magazine. You’ll also find my writings on the CTCMath blog. Through this site, I have authored over 50 math and science resources.