The first Thanksgiving
In the fall of 1621, the Pilgrims of Plymouth Colony and the Wampanoag people shared a harvest meal that lasted several days. The Wampanoag had lived on this land for thousands of years, and their leader Massasoit had made a peace agreement with the newcomers. These questions stick to what we actually know from the people who were there.
Q1.In what year did the Pilgrims and their Native American neighbors share the harvest feast we now call the first Thanksgiving?Tap to reveal
Answer: 1621
It happened in the fall, after the Pilgrims gathered their first harvest in their new home.
Q2.What was the name of the ship that carried the Pilgrims to America?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Mayflower
About 100 passengers crowded on board for a trip that took more than two months.
Q3.Which Native American people shared the 1621 harvest feast with the Pilgrims?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Wampanoag
Wampanoag people still live in Massachusetts today, including on Cape Cod and the island of Martha's Vineyard.
Q4.Which ocean did the Mayflower sail across to reach America?Tap to reveal
Answer: The Atlantic Ocean
The Atlantic is the second-largest ocean on Earth, after the Pacific.
Q5.What was the name of the Wampanoag leader who came to the 1621 feast?Tap to reveal
Answer: Massasoit
In the spring of 1621, Massasoit and the Pilgrims promised to keep the peace and help each other.
Q6.What was the name of the Pilgrims' colony, or new town?Tap to reveal
Answer: Plymouth
It shares its name with the port town in England where the Mayflower set off across the ocean.
Q7.Which man, who could speak English, helped the Pilgrims learn how to plant corn?Tap to reveal
Answer: Squanto (Tisquantum)
His home village, Patuxet, once stood on the very spot where the Pilgrims built their colony.
Q8.About how many days did the 1621 harvest celebration last?Tap to reveal
Answer: Three days
A Pilgrim named Edward Winslow described the feast in a letter, which is how we know about it today.
Q9.Wampanoag hunters brought five of which animal to the feast?Tap to reveal
Answer: Deer
Deer meat is called venison, and it was an important food for the Wampanoag.
Q10.The name Wampanoag is often translated as People of the what?Tap to reveal
Answer: First Light
Their homeland is on the east coast, where the sun rises over the ocean every morning.
Thanksgiving food
Thanksgiving dinner is one of the biggest meals of the year in many American homes. Some dishes, like corn and squash, were grown here long before the Pilgrims arrived, while others, like sweet potatoes topped with marshmallows, are much newer. Ask kids to guess before you read each answer, then see who at the table knows the most about dinner.
Q1.What small, red, tangy berry is cooked into a sauce for Thanksgiving dinner?Tap to reveal
Answer: Cranberry
Cranberries have tiny pockets of air inside, so farmers flood the fields and scoop up the berries as they float.
Q2.What big orange vegetable, also carved into jack-o'-lanterns, is baked into a favorite Thanksgiving pie?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pumpkin
Scientists call a pumpkin a fruit, because it grows from a flower and holds seeds inside.
Q3.What is the bread mixture called that is cooked inside the turkey or in a dish beside it?Tap to reveal
Answer: Stuffing
In many Southern homes it is made with cornbread and called dressing.
Q4.What soft, fluffy side dish is made by boiling potatoes and mixing them with butter and milk?Tap to reveal
Answer: Mashed potatoes
Potatoes first came from the mountains of South America, where people have grown them for thousands of years.
Q5.What crunchy red or green fruit is sliced and baked into a pie that many families serve next to pumpkin pie?Tap to reveal
Answer: Apple
The apples we eat did not grow in America at first, so early settlers brought apple seeds and young trees over from Europe.
Q6.What orange vegetable is often baked with gooey marshmallows on top?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sweet potatoes
Even with their name, sweet potatoes are not close relatives of regular potatoes.
Q7.What long green vegetable goes into a creamy casserole topped with crispy onions?Tap to reveal
Answer: Green beans
This casserole was first made up in a soup company's test kitchen in the 1950s.
Q8.What nut, from a tree that grows naturally in the southern United States, goes into a sweet, sticky pie?Tap to reveal
Answer: Pecan
Texas liked this tree so much that it chose the pecan as its official state tree.
Q9.The Wampanoag grew three crops together that are often called the Three Sisters. What are they?Tap to reveal
Answer: Corn, beans and squash
The tall corn gives the beans a pole to climb, and the big squash leaves shade the ground to keep weeds away.
Q10.Which US state grows the most pumpkins?Tap to reveal
Answer: Illinois
Many of its pumpkins are a special kind grown to be turned into canned pumpkin for pies.
Parades, football and traditions
Thanksgiving has its own date rule, its own giant parade and its own football games. The holiday we know today took shape long after 1621, thanks to a writer who never gave up and a president who agreed with her. These questions cover the balloons, the calendar and the fun that fills the long holiday weekend.
Q1.In which month is Thanksgiving celebrated in the United States?Tap to reveal
Answer: November
Canada has its own Thanksgiving too, and it is held in October.
Q2.In which big city does the famous Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade take place?Tap to reveal
Answer: New York City
The first parade in 1924 even had real animals borrowed from the zoo.
Q3.What giant shapes of cartoon characters drift high above the street, held down by ropes, during the Thanksgiving parade?Tap to reveal
Answer: Balloons
Giant balloons first joined the parade in 1927, and Felix the Cat was one of the very first.
Q4.Which sport do many families watch on TV on Thanksgiving Day?Tap to reveal
Answer: American football
The Detroit Lions have played a game on Thanksgiving almost every year since 1934.
Q5.Which US president asked the whole country to celebrate Thanksgiving on the same day, starting in 1863?Tap to reveal
Answer: Abraham Lincoln
Before then, each state picked its own day for Thanksgiving, so the date changed from place to place.
Q6.Every year before Thanksgiving, the US president "pardons" one animal at the White House so it does not end up on a dinner table. Which animal?Tap to reveal
Answer: A turkey
After the ceremony, the pardoned turkey goes to live out its days on a farm.
Q7.Which jolly character always rides at the very end of the Macy's parade?Tap to reveal
Answer: Santa Claus
His arrival is the parade's signal that the winter holiday season has begun.
Q8.What bone from the turkey do two people pull apart to see who gets to make a wish?Tap to reveal
Answer: The wishbone
Its science name is the furcula, and it helps keep a bird's chest strong when it flaps its wings.
Q9.Which magazine editor wrote letters to presidents for many years, asking them to make Thanksgiving a national holiday?Tap to reveal
Answer: Sarah Josepha Hale
She edited a popular magazine for about 40 years and used it to spread her Thanksgiving idea.
Q10.Which cartoon beagle has appeared as a balloon in the Macy's parade more times than any other character?Tap to reveal
Answer: Snoopy
Snoopy comes from the Peanuts comic strip, drawn by Charles Schulz.
Turkeys and autumn facts
Wild turkeys are clever, fast birds with some very strange body parts, and autumn is full of changes kids can spot right from the window. This last round mixes turkey facts with the science of colorful leaves and busy animals getting ready for winter. It is a great round to finish on, because some answers surprise grown-ups too.
Q1.What sound is a turkey famous for making?Tap to reveal
Answer: Gobble
Gobbling is mostly done by the males, while the females usually talk with clucks, purrs and yelps.
Q2.What is a grown-up female turkey called?Tap to reveal
Answer: A hen
A young male turkey is called a jake, and a young female is called a jenny.
Q3.Before they drop in autumn, the leaves on many trees turn from green to which bright colors?Tap to reveal
Answer: Red, orange and yellow
The green coloring, called chlorophyll, fades as the days get shorter and uncovers yellows and oranges that were hiding in the leaf all summer.
Q4.What is another name for the season of autumn?Tap to reveal
Answer: Fall
Autumn begins around September 22 or 23, on a day called the autumnal equinox.
Q5.What is a baby turkey called?Tap to reveal
Answer: A poult
Baby turkeys can leave the nest and follow their mother within about a day of hatching.
Q6.What is the floppy red skin that hangs down over a turkey's beak called?Tap to reveal
Answer: The snood
A tom's snood grows longer and redder when he wants to show off.
Q7.Can wild turkeys fly?Tap to reveal
Answer: Yes, for short distances
Wild turkeys fly up into trees each evening so they can sleep safely off the ground.
Q8.Which bushy-tailed animal buries acorns in autumn so it has food in winter?Tap to reveal
Answer: The squirrel
Squirrels forget some of the acorns they bury, which helps new oak trees grow.
Q9.On which continent do wild turkeys naturally live?Tap to reveal
Answer: North America
Explorers from Spain carried tame turkeys from Mexico back to Europe in the 1500s.
Q10.Which famous American inventor wrote in a letter that the turkey was a more respectable bird than the bald eagle?Tap to reveal
Answer: Benjamin Franklin
Despite a popular story, he never actually asked for the turkey to become the national bird.
Frequently Asked Questions
What age is this Thanksgiving trivia right for?
It works best for kids between about 6 and 12. The words are simple enough for a 7-year-old to read, and each round goes from easy to harder. Younger children will know most of the easy questions about pumpkin pie, turkeys and the parade, while older kids get a real challenge from the last two questions in every round. For mixed ages, let the little ones answer the first few in each round.
How do I run this quiz in a classroom?
Split the class into small teams and read one round at a time. Give each team a minute to agree on an answer, then read the answer and the fun fact out loud. The fun facts are the best part for learning, so pause and let kids react. Ten questions take about ten minutes, so one round makes a good warm-up and all four rounds fill a longer party or a last-day-before-break lesson.
Is this Thanksgiving quiz free to use in class?
Yes. You can read the questions aloud in your classroom, at home, at a party or in the car without paying anything, and the quiz on this page is free to play online. Teachers often use one round as a morning warm-up or a reward at the end of the day. The questions were written for this page, so you will not find the same set copied from a worksheet somewhere else.
What is the hardest question in this Thanksgiving trivia?
The last question in the first round is probably the trickiest: it asks what the name Wampanoag is often translated to mean. The question about the magazine editor who asked presidents to make Thanksgiving a national holiday is another tough one. If a question is too hard, give a hint, such as the first letter of the answer, and then share the fun fact so everyone still learns something.
Where can kids play this Thanksgiving quiz online?
Right here on this page. Scroll to the quiz, pick your answers as you go and see how many you got right, then compare them with the answers and fun facts in the list. It works on a phone, a tablet or a classroom screen. If your kids want more after Thanksgiving, try the other kids trivia and holiday quizzes linked at the bottom of the page.
