Thirty-six Thanksgiving questions for the table, the car ride to
grandma's, or the long stretch while the turkey cooks. They're grouped by grade:
kindergarten and 1st, 2nd and 3rd, and 4th through 6th. Tap "Answer" to check.
A lot of what many adults learned about the "First Thanksgiving" in school is wrong,
or at least much simpler than what happened. So we went to the museums in Plymouth and
the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian and checked each answer
there. The 1621 questions stick to what the record
actually says, include the Wampanoag side of the story, and say so when nobody knows.
After the questions there's a short section on why quizzing at the dinner table works,
and on playing with kids of different ages.
36 Thanksgiving trivia questions and answers in three rounds: K–1, 2–3 and 4–6.
The 1621 harvest celebration, told from the only two written accounts, plus what the Wampanoag remember and what's still unknown.
Let kids guess before you reveal, and ask a few again over leftovers. Research suggests both help it stick, though most of it wasn't done on young kids.
Thanksgiving trivia for K–1
The holiday
What month is Thanksgiving in?
AnswerNovember. In the United States it's on the fourth
Thursday of November.
What day of the week is Thanksgiving always on?
AnswerThursday.
Thanksgiving is about saying thank you. How do you say "thank you" in Spanish?
AnswerGracias.
Turkeys
What sound is a male turkey famous for making?
AnswerA gobble. That's why boy turkeys are called
gobblers. Turkeys also yelp, cluck and purr.
What do you call a girl turkey?
AnswerA hen.
What do you call a baby turkey?
AnswerA poult (it rhymes with "colt").
Can wild turkeys fly?
AnswerYes! They'd usually rather run, but they can fly
fast for short distances, up to about 50 miles per hour.
Where do wild turkeys sleep at night: in a hole, in the water, or up in a tree?
AnswerUp in a tree. Sleeping high in the branches keeps
them safe.
A turkey has 2 legs. How many legs do 3 turkeys have?
Answer6.
People and the parade
In 1621, the English colonists at Plymouth held a harvest celebration. Which Native
people joined them for three days?
AnswerThe Wampanoag (say it WAHM-puh-NO-ag).
Do Wampanoag people still live in Massachusetts today?
AnswerYes. Thousands of Wampanoag people live in New
England today, in communities like Mashpee and Aquinnah.
Which big city has the famous Thanksgiving parade with giant balloons?
AnswerNew York City. It's the Macy's Thanksgiving Day
Parade.
Thanksgiving trivia for 2–3
The 1621 harvest celebration
What was the name of the ship the Pilgrims sailed on in 1620?
AnswerThe Mayflower. The trip across the
Atlantic took 66 days, often in stormy weather.
The Wampanoag leader who came to the 1621 celebration is often called Massasoit.
Was that his name?
AnswerNot quite. Massasoit was his title, as the
Wampanoag's great sachem, or leader. His name was Ousamequin. He came with about 90 of his men.
The Wampanoag men went hunting during the celebration. What did they bring back?
AnswerFive deer, which they gave to the English
governor and other leaders.
How long did the Wampanoag guests stay?
AnswerThree days.
What does the name "Wampanoag" mean?
AnswerPeople of the First Light.
Wampanoag farmers planted three crops together, known as the Three Sisters. What
are they?
AnswerCorn, beans and squash. The corn gives the beans a
pole to climb, the beans feed the soil, and the squash's big leaves shade the ground so
weeds can't grow.
Were the Pilgrims the first people in America to hold a thanksgiving?
AnswerNo. Long before the English came, Native people
held many days of thanksgiving, like a Strawberry Thanksgiving and a Green Corn
Thanksgiving. For the Wampanoag, giving thanks was part of everyday life.
Turkeys and food
Grown-up gobblers have a rough, black tuft hanging from their chest. What is it
called?
AnswerA beard. It can grow up to 12 inches long.
What do wild turkeys eat?
AnswerAlmost everything: acorns, seeds, leaves, fruit,
grain and insects. Baby turkeys eat mostly bugs at first.
What is the Spanish word for turkey?
AnswerPavo.
The parade and the calendar
The first Macy's parade, in 1924, didn't have giant balloons. What did it have
instead?
AnswerAnimals borrowed from the Central Park Zoo. It was
called the Macy's Christmas Parade back then.
Giant balloons first floated in the parade in 1927. Which cartoon cat was the first
character balloon?
AnswerFelix the Cat.
Thanksgiving is the fourth Thursday in November. In 2026, November 5 is the first
Thursday. What date is Thanksgiving?
AnswerNovember 26. Count by sevens: 5, 12, 19,
26.
Thanksgiving trivia for 4–6
What we know about 1621, and what we don't
How many written descriptions of the 1621 harvest celebration survive?
AnswerOnly two, and both were written by English
colonists. The more detailed one is a letter by Edward Winslow, dated December 11,
1621. Nothing written survives from the Wampanoag side. Wampanoag history is carried
in oral tradition, the stories families and the nation tell and pass
down.
Did the 1621 celebration happen on the fourth Thursday of November?
AnswerNo. Nobody knows the exact date. Historians can
only say it was sometime between September 21 and November 9, 1621. The name "the
First Thanksgiving" came much later, in the 1800s.
Why did Ousamequin and his men come to the celebration?
AnswerHonestly, nobody knows for sure. What we do know:
that spring, Ousamequin and the colonists had agreed to a peace treaty, promising to
help each other if either was attacked. The Wampanoag had lost many of their people to
sickness in the years just before, and a powerful neighboring nation was pressuring
them. Being allies with the English was a careful choice.
Tisquantum, often called Squanto, helped the colonists as an interpreter. How did he
already know some English?
AnswerIn 1614, he and others were kidnapped by an English
ship captain who meant to sell them. He escaped to England and lived in London for a
while. When he finally came home, his village, Patuxet, was empty because sickness had
swept through it. The colonists built Plymouth on that same land.
According to Plymouth's governor, William Bradford, what did Tisquantum show the
colonists about planting corn?
AnswerHow to plant and tend it, and that it needed fish
put in the ground with it, or it wouldn't grow well in the old fields.
About 50 English colonists were left after their first hard winter, and about 90
Wampanoag men came to the celebration. About how many people is that in all?
AnswerAbout 140. The Wampanoag guests outnumbered the
colonists almost two to one.
The food, then and now
Did the Pilgrims eat turkey at the 1621 celebration?
AnswerMaybe, but nobody knows. Winslow wrote that four
men went hunting for "fowl," which could mean ducks, geese or turkeys. Bradford wrote
that there were plenty of wild turkeys that fall. What we know for sure is wildfowl,
venison (deer) and corn.
Which of these was almost certainly not at the 1621 meal: venison, corn,
pumpkin pie or mashed potatoes?
AnswerPumpkin pie and mashed potatoes. The colonists had
no butter or wheat flour for pie crust, and potatoes hadn't reached New England yet.
Cranberry sauce wasn't there either.
How it became a national holiday
Sarah Josepha Hale, a magazine editor, wrote to President Lincoln in 1863 asking for
a national Thanksgiving. Did it work?
AnswerYes. Less than a week after her letter, Lincoln
proclaimed the last Thursday of November a day of Thanksgiving. Hale is also credited
with "Mary Had a Little Lamb," though some people still argue about who wrote
it.
Thanksgiving used to be the last Thursday of November. Why is it the
fourth Thursday now?
AnswerIn 1939, President Franklin Roosevelt moved it a
week earlier to make the holiday shopping season longer. Some states went along and
some didn't, so for two years the country had two Thanksgivings. In 1941, Congress
settled it: the fourth Thursday. (Bonus: that means Thanksgiving always lands between
November 22 and November 28.)
Did Benjamin Franklin want the turkey to be the national bird instead of the bald
eagle?
AnswerNot really. In a 1784 letter to his daughter, he
poked fun at the bald eagle, said he didn't mind that the eagle on a new emblem looked
more like a turkey, and called the turkey "a much more respectable Bird, and withal a
true original Native of America." It was a joke in a private letter, not a
proposal.
How to talk about the 1621 harvest with kids
We're not historians, and this part isn't simple. Here's what the museum pages
listed below say, to help you answer the follow-up questions that come after trivia.
The Wampanoag weren't guests in a Pilgrim story. The Smithsonian's
National Museum of the American Indian makes the point that most teaching materials show
"nameless, faceless, generic 'Indians'" at the meal, when the Wampanoag were a nation with
their own government and beliefs who had lived there for thousands of years, and who had
been essential to the colonists getting through that first year. Using real names helps:
Wampanoag, Ousamequin, Tisquantum, Patuxet.
Say what we don't know. Both written accounts are English. We don't
know the date, the full menu, or why the Wampanoag came. Try telling kids "nobody
knows" when it's true. It's a good lesson on its own.
The Wampanoag are still here. Kids often picture Native people only in
the past. Plimoth Patuxet's page on the Wampanoag was written by Nancy Eldredge (Nauset
Wampanoag and Penobscot), and it's written in the present tense: the communities, the
language, the ceremonies, today.
For some families, it's a day of mourning. Since 1970, Native people
and others have gathered in Plymouth on Thanksgiving for a National Day of Mourning, to
honor their ancestors and to speak about what colonization cost them. It began when an
Aquinnah Wampanoag leader, Frank James (Wamsutta), was told his speech for a Pilgrim
anniversary was too strong and chose to give it on a hill in Plymouth instead. One
option is to share with older kids that the same day means different things to different
people, and to give younger ones the true basics, and none of the myths.
Why quizzing at the dinner table works
Family trivia lines up with one of the best-supported ideas in learning research.
Here's what the studies found, and where the evidence is thin.
Guessing first is the point. Trying to pull an answer out of your head
helps you remember it later, more than reading it again does. Psychologists call this
retrieval practice, which is basically quizzing yourself. In the classic study, college
students who took a recall test on a passage remembered more of it days later than
students who spent the time rereading it
(Roediger & Karpicke,
2006). A smaller study with 88 children, average age 10, found the same thing, and it
helped kids regardless of how strong their reading was
(Karpicke, Blunt & Smith,
2016). That was word lists in a lab-like setting, not a holiday meal, but it's the
closest age match we found. So try letting your child sit with "what does Wampanoag mean?" for a few
seconds before anyone blurts it out.
It holds up in real classrooms too. A review of 50 classroom
experiments found retrieval practice helped across grade levels and subjects, with most of
the effects medium or large (Agarwal,
Nunes & Blunt, 2021). Elementary studies were a minority of those, though, and
almost all were in Western, wealthy countries.
Ask again over leftovers. Practice spread out over days sticks better
than the same practice crammed into one sitting. That's been shown with fifth graders
learning vocabulary (Sobel, Cepeda &
Kapler, 2011) and with 5- to 7-year-olds learning science
(Vlach & Sandhofer,
2012). Both were small studies. Still, bringing back the Felix the Cat question on
Saturday costs nothing.
None of this was tested on Thanksgiving trivia. It's the closest evidence we could find
for why a quiz at the table might do more than fill the time before pie. If you want the
longer version, see what the
research says about quizzing kids.
Try it at the table: playing together across ages
Thanksgiving is the one meal where a kindergartner, a fifth grader and a grandparent
might all be at the same table. Here are a few things to try with a wide age gap.
Let the older kids be the quizmaster. A 4th grader reading the K–1
round to a cousin, and waiting while they think, is practice at patience and kindness.
There's no study cited for that; it's something the team cares about.
Play in mixed-age teams instead of everyone for themselves. A
review of studies found that cooperative goals went with higher achievement and better
relationships between kids than competition did
(Roseth, Johnson & Johnson,
2008). Those kids were 12 to 15, not elementary age, so this is a stretch. But it
also means the youngest player doesn't lose to the oldest every round.
Let grown-ups get some wrong. Plenty of adults would miss the
question about the date. That shows kids that not knowing is normal.
Skip the prizes. Promised rewards for doing something can make kids
less interested in it for its own sake
(Deci, Koestner & Ryan,
1999). Saying "good guess" works fine.
What are good Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids?
Questions about turkeys, the Macy's parade, food and the 1621 harvest work well for most ages. Younger kids enjoy simple ones, like what a baby turkey is called (a poult). Older kids can handle what's known and unknown about 1621, such as the fact that only two written accounts survive. Letting kids guess before you reveal the answer helps it stick.
What really happened at the first Thanksgiving?
In the fall of 1621, the English colonists at Plymouth held a harvest celebration. The Wampanoag leader Ousamequin, called Massasoit, came with about 90 men, stayed three days, and brought five deer. Only two English accounts survive, so nobody knows the exact date, the full menu, or why the Wampanoag came. The name "First Thanksgiving" came in the 1800s.
Did the Pilgrims eat turkey at the first Thanksgiving?
Maybe. One colonist wrote that four men hunted "fowl," which could include ducks, geese or turkeys, and the governor wrote that wild turkeys were plentiful that fall. Historians agree on wildfowl, venison and corn. Pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce almost certainly weren't there, since the colonists lacked butter and wheat flour and potatoes hadn't arrived.
How do I teach kids about Thanksgiving respectfully?
Use real names, like Wampanoag and Ousamequin, instead of generic "Indians." Say "nobody knows" when that's true. Mention that Wampanoag people still live in Massachusetts today. With older kids, you can add that some Native families mark the day as a National Day of Mourning. Museums like Plimoth Patuxet and the Smithsonian have good material written for kids.
About this article. Written by the Super Trivia Kids team from the
published sources listed below. We're not historians, researchers, teachers or doctors.
We checked each answer against the museum, government and wildlife pages listed below,
and dropped anything we couldn't confirm. The history of 1621 leans on Plimoth Patuxet,
Pilgrim Hall Museum and the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. The
research on quizzing comes from the published studies listed below. Every source links
to the original so you can check our reading of it. If you spot a mistake, tell us
through the support page and we'll fix it.
National Museum of the American Indian, Smithsonian Institution. American Indian
Perspectives on Thanksgiving (teacher poster).
americanindian.si.edu (PDF)
Smithsonian Magazine. What Was on the Menu at the First Thanksgiving?
smithsonianmag.com
Associated Press, via CBS Miami. First Big NYC Thanksgiving Parade Had Zoo Animals.
cbsnews.com
Research on quizzing and playing together
Roediger, H. L., & Karpicke, J. D. (2006). Test-enhanced learning: Taking memory
tests improves long-term retention. Psychological Science, 17(3), 249–255.
doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-9280.2006.01693.x
Karpicke, J. D., Blunt, J. R., & Smith, M. A. (2016). Retrieval-based learning:
Positive effects of retrieval practice in elementary school children. Frontiers in
Psychology, 7, 350.
doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00350
Agarwal, P. K., Nunes, L. D., & Blunt, J. R. (2021). Retrieval practice
consistently benefits student learning: A systematic review of applied research in
schools and classrooms. Educational Psychology Review, 33(4), 1409–1453.
doi.org/10.1007/s10648-021-09595-9
Sobel, H. S., Cepeda, N. J., & Kapler, I. V. (2011). Spacing effects in
real-world classroom vocabulary learning. Applied Cognitive Psychology, 25(5),
763–767. doi.org/10.1002/acp.1747
Vlach, H. A., & Sandhofer, C. M. (2012). Distributing learning over time: The
spacing effect in children's acquisition and generalization of science concepts.
Child Development, 83(4), 1137–1144.
doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2012.01781.x
Roseth, C. J., Johnson, D. W., & Johnson, R. T. (2008). Promoting early
adolescents' achievement and peer relationships: The effects of cooperative,
competitive, and individualistic goal structures. Psychological Bulletin,
134(2), 223–246.
doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.134.2.223
Deci, E. L., Koestner, R., & Ryan, R. M. (1999). A meta-analytic review of
experiments examining the effects of extrinsic rewards on intrinsic motivation.
Psychological Bulletin, 125(6), 627–668.
doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.125.6.627