Thanksgiving Meal Planning Math

Planning Thanksgiving dinner on a budget is something many families do every year but children often are not part of that process. It’s a fun activity, though, and one that builds budgeting skills, math skills, and teamwork. Try it with your students by planning a Thanksgiving dinner in groups together using flyers from local grocery stores.

Thanksgiving Dinner Budget Activity

1. Divide your class into groups and distribute one worksheet to each group as well as flyers from various grocery stores in the area.
2. Instruct teams that their goal is to plan a Thanksgiving dinner for their group using the flyers provided. Each group must select at least one meat, one vegetable, one side dish, one dessert, and one beverage. Explain that after those basic requirements, teams can add on extra items as their budget allows. They can choose whatever they want within the category, such as corn, peas, or carrots as a side dish.
3. Groups are not require to budget for condiments, plates or silverware, cooking utensils, etc.
4. Part of the goal is teamwork so groups must decide together what to have for dinner within their group.
5. All the purchases must be within the budget. If you want to make it more difficult, you can have students plan for applicable sales tax in your area.
6. Students must fill out the worksheet to get credit for the activity.

The worksheet is available here.

More Thanksgiving dinner activities:

• Thanksgiving counting worksheet
• Thanksgiving dinner combinatorics
• Thanksgiving Lesson Plans