A good Thanksgiving trivia question works for the 5 year old and the grandparent at the same table. These 100 Thanksgiving trivia questions for kids cover the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag, how Thanksgiving became a holiday, the food, the turkey itself, and the parades and football that fill the day.
The history answers are checked against the one eyewitness account of the 1621 harvest feast and the National Archives record of how the date was set. The list is written for parents hosting the big dinner, teachers planning the week before break and kids who want to stump the grown-ups.
Every question has its answer right underneath, and each topic runs from easiest to hardest, so nobody gets stuck on questions meant for someone older. Start with the easiest way to play.
Jump to a topic:
The First Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims
The Wampanoag People
How Thanksgiving Became a Holiday
Thanksgiving Food
Turkey Trivia
Parades, Football and Traditions
How to Play Thanksgiving Trivia at the Table, in Class or in the Car
The right way to play depends on where you are and who is playing. Pick your setting:
- At the Thanksgiving table: Play while the turkey rests. Go around the table with one question per person and let the youngest guest go first. If the ages are mixed, play Pass the Pie Trivia below so everyone gets questions at their own level.
- In class the week before break: Split the room into teams by table and read 10 to 15 questions from one topic. Thanksgiving Food and Turkey Trivia work best for younger grades, because every kid has eaten the food or seen the bird.
- In the car to Grandma’s: Ask one question at every exit sign, and save The First Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims for the long stretch, since those answers start the best conversations.
- With older kids and grown-ups: Go straight to How Thanksgiving Became a Holiday and the last few questions in each topic, and give each answer a 10 second timer.
Say you are hosting 14 people and the turkey needs 30 minutes to rest. Hand a cousin this page, deal 15 questions with the round builder near the bottom, and the kids who would normally hover around the kitchen are arguing about whether wild turkeys can fly. By the time the carving starts, everyone has a new fact to share at dinner.
Here is the whole setup:
- Choose your setting from the list above.
- Pick topics that fit the ages playing, using the age guide below.
- Play Pass the Pie Trivia, or deal a round with the Thanksgiving Table Trivia Builder.
- Keep the answers hidden until everyone has had a guess.
Which Thanksgiving Trivia Questions Suit Which Age
Age decides whether Thanksgiving trivia feels fun or frustrating. Inside every topic below, the questions run from easiest to hardest, so here is where to start for each age.
- Ages 5 to 7: Thanksgiving Food, the parade and football questions, and the first few questions in every topic. The answers are one or two words they can picture, like turkey, gobble and pumpkin pie. Count close guesses as right.
- Ages 8 to 9: The middle of each topic: the Wampanoag leader Massasoit, Lincoln’s proclamation, why cranberries float and which NFL teams always play on Thanksgiving. They know the holiday, so the fun is in the details.
- Ages 10 to 11: The last questions in each topic, including the Mayflower Compact, Franksgiving, the National Day of Mourning and the turkey’s snood. Add a timer to keep it competitive.
Picture a 6 year old and an 11 year old sitting side by side. Read the same list to both and the 11 year old answers everything while the 6 year old gives up by the fourth question. Deal each player questions from their own age group instead, and both have a real shot at the last slice of pie. That is exactly how Pass the Pie Trivia below deals its questions.
Pass the Pie Trivia
Everyone plays at their own age level, so a 5 year old and an 11 year old can play in the same game. Pick a slice of pie to get a question. Get it right and you keep the slice. Miss it and you do a silly gobble challenge.
Just for fun and learning: every question and answer comes from the list on this page. Player names stay in this browser tab, nothing is saved, and nothing you type is sent anywhere.
The First Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims Trivia
Almost everything we know about the 1621 harvest feast comes from one short letter by colonist Edward Winslow, and the Plimoth Patuxet Museums guide to the first Thanksgiving quotes his words in full. These questions stick to what that record actually says, which is not always what the storybooks say.
1. What season was it when the 1621 harvest feast took place?
Answer: Fall. It happened sometime between September 21 and November 9, 1621, after the colonists brought in their first harvest.
2. What ship carried the Pilgrims across the Atlantic Ocean?
Answer: The Mayflower.
3. Which two groups shared the 1621 harvest feast that we now call the first Thanksgiving?
Answer: The English colonists we call the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag people.
4. What famous rock is linked to the Pilgrims' landing?
Answer: Plymouth Rock. The story that the Pilgrims stepped onto it is a tradition that grew up long after 1620.
5. What do we call the people who sailed on the Mayflower to start a new colony?
Answer: The Pilgrims.
6. In what year did the first Thanksgiving harvest feast take place?
Answer: 1621.
7. In which present-day U.S. state did the 1621 feast happen?
Answer: Massachusetts, at Plymouth Colony.
8. How many days did the 1621 harvest celebration last?
Answer: Three days, according to colonist Edward Winslow's letter.
9. What did the colonists' governor send four men out to hunt for the feast?
Answer: Fowl, which means wild birds such as ducks and geese. Winslow wrote that the four men killed enough birds in one day to feed the colony for almost a week.
10. What did the Wampanoag guests hunt and bring to the feast?
Answer: Five deer.
11. What slippery food did Squanto teach the colonists to catch in the spring of 1621?
Answer: Eels. He caught them in the mud of a creek by treading them out with his feet.
12. About how long did the Mayflower's trip across the ocean take?
Answer: About 66 days, a little more than two months.
13. How many passengers sailed on the Mayflower?
Answer: 102 passengers, plus a crew of around 30.
14. From which English port did the Mayflower finally set sail in 1620?
Answer: Plymouth, England.
15. What agreement did the Pilgrim men sign on board the Mayflower before going ashore?
Answer: The Mayflower Compact.
16. Who was the governor of Plymouth Colony at the time of the 1621 feast?
Answer: William Bradford.
17. Who wrote the only eyewitness description of the 1621 celebration that still survives?
Answer: Edward Winslow, in a letter he sent back to England.
18. Which bird never appears by name in that eyewitness description?
Answer: Turkey. Winslow's letter only says fowl. Governor Bradford wrote years later that the colonists had wild turkeys that fall, so turkey is possible but not certain.
19. About how many English colonists were still alive to celebrate the harvest in 1621?
Answer: About 50, roughly half of the people who had arrived on the Mayflower. Many died during their first hard winter.
Wampanoag Trivia: The Hosts Most Thanksgiving Quizzes Skip
The colonists would not have made it through their first year without the Wampanoag and Tisquantum, the Patuxet man they called Squanto. Many Thanksgiving quizzes give them a question or two. These give them twelve, including what Wampanoag people are doing today.
20. What is the name of the Native nation that joined the colonists at the 1621 feast?
Answer: The Wampanoag.
21. Which Patuxet man helped the colonists as an interpreter and guide?
Answer: Tisquantum, who is often called Squanto.
22. Which crop did Squanto show the colonists how to plant, using fish to help it grow?
Answer: Corn.
23. The name Wampanoag is often translated as what?
Answer: People of the First Light. The Wampanoag live in the east, where the sun rises first.
24. Who was the Wampanoag leader who came to the 1621 feast?
Answer: Massasoit, also known as Ousamequin.
25. About how many Wampanoag men came to the feast with Massasoit?
Answer: About 90.
26. What three crops did many Native American farmers grow together and call the Three Sisters?
Answer: Corn, beans and squash.
27. What is another name for corn?
Answer: Maize.
28. Do Wampanoag people still live in Massachusetts today?
Answer: Yes. The Mashpee Wampanoag Tribe and the Wampanoag Tribe of Gay Head (Aquinnah) are both federally recognized tribes in Massachusetts.
29. What is the title of a Wampanoag leader such as Massasoit?
Answer: A sachem.
30. How did Squanto already speak English when he met the colonists?
Answer: He had been kidnapped in 1614 and carried across the ocean to Spain, then lived in England before he made it back home.
31. Why do some Native Americans gather in Plymouth on Thanksgiving Day for a National Day of Mourning?
Answer: To remember the hardships Native peoples suffered after the colonists arrived. The gathering began in 1970.
How Thanksgiving Became a Holiday Trivia
The 1621 feast was a one-time harvest celebration, not a yearly holiday. It took several presidents, a determined magazine editor and an act of Congress to land on the fourth Thursday of November, and the National Archives record of the 1941 Thanksgiving law shows how the date was finally settled. If your Smarty Pants loves this part, the presidents trivia on our site goes much deeper.
32. Which day of the week is Thanksgiving always on in the United States?
Answer: Thursday.
33. What is the date of Thanksgiving in 2026?
Answer: Thursday, November 26.
34. What word means feeling thankful, and gives Thanksgiving its big idea?
Answer: Gratitude.
35. Which Thursday in November is Thanksgiving?
Answer: The fourth Thursday.
36. Which president made Thanksgiving a national holiday celebrated every year?
Answer: Abraham Lincoln.
37. In what year did Abraham Lincoln proclaim a yearly national Thanksgiving?
Answer: 1863.
38. Which writer and magazine editor wrote letters for years asking presidents to make Thanksgiving a national holiday?
Answer: Sarah Josepha Hale.
39. Which nursery rhyme is Sarah Josepha Hale credited with writing?
Answer: Mary Had a Little Lamb.
40. Which country celebrates its Thanksgiving on the second Monday in October?
Answer: Canada.
41. Which president issued the first Thanksgiving proclamation for the new United States, in 1789?
Answer: George Washington.
42. Which president moved Thanksgiving one week earlier in 1939 to give stores a longer holiday shopping season?
Answer: Franklin D. Roosevelt.
43. What nickname did people give to Roosevelt's earlier Thanksgiving?
Answer: Franksgiving.
44. In what year did Congress make the fourth Thursday of November the official Thanksgiving Day?
Answer: 1941. President Roosevelt signed the law on December 26, 1941.
45. What are the earliest and latest dates Thanksgiving can fall on?
Answer: November 22 is the earliest and November 28 is the latest.
Thanksgiving Food Trivia From the Turkey to the Pie
Every Thanksgiving table is a little different, but the classics show up almost everywhere. These questions start with dishes a 5 year old can name and end with where the cranberries and pumpkins actually grow. When the plates are cleared, keep the dinner theme going with our food trivia for kids.
46. What big bird do most families eat for Thanksgiving dinner?
Answer: Turkey.
47. What orange pie is the classic Thanksgiving dessert?
Answer: Pumpkin pie.
48. What tart red berry is cooked into a sauce for many Thanksgiving tables?
Answer: Cranberries.
49. What do you call the bread mixture cooked inside the turkey or baked in a pan next to it?
Answer: Stuffing. Many families call it dressing when it is baked in a pan.
50. What brown sauce made from turkey drippings goes on mashed potatoes?
Answer: Gravy.
51. What casserole mixes green beans, creamy soup and crunchy fried onions?
Answer: Green bean casserole.
52. What sweet orange side dish is often topped with marshmallows?
Answer: Sweet potato casserole.
53. What do you call a meal where every guest brings a dish to share?
Answer: A potluck.
54. What do you call the Y-shaped bone two people pull apart to make a wish?
Answer: The wishbone.
55. Who gets the wish when the wishbone snaps?
Answer: The person left holding the bigger piece.
56. What color are cranberries?
Answer: Red, when they are ripe.
57. What nut pie is a Thanksgiving favorite, especially in the South?
Answer: Pecan pie.
58. What is meat from a deer called?
Answer: Venison.
59. What is the horn-shaped basket overflowing with fruits and vegetables that shows up in Thanksgiving decorations?
Answer: A cornucopia, also called a horn of plenty.
60. Is a pumpkin a fruit or a vegetable?
Answer: A fruit. It grows from a flower and holds seeds, so scientists call it a fruit, even though we cook it like a vegetable.
61. Where do cranberries grow?
Answer: In low, wet beds called bogs. Farmers often flood the bogs at harvest time, and the ripe berries float to the top.
62. Was there pumpkin pie at the 1621 feast?
Answer: Almost certainly not. The colonists were short on butter and sugar for crusts and fillings, though they probably ate pumpkins and squash other ways.
63. Which state grows the most cranberries?
Answer: Wisconsin.
64. Which state grows the most pumpkins?
Answer: Illinois.
65. Which chemical in turkey gets blamed for after-dinner naps?
Answer: Tryptophan. Turkey does not have much more of it than chicken, so the big meal is the real reason people get sleepy.
Turkey Trivia for Bird Experts
The turkey gets eaten every November, but most people know very little about the bird itself. These questions cover what turkeys sound like, what their strange body parts are called and how the White House turkey pardon started.
66. What sound does a male turkey make?
Answer: Gobble gobble.
67. What is a male turkey called?
Answer: A tom, also called a gobbler.
68. What is a female turkey called?
Answer: A hen.
69. What is a baby turkey called?
Answer: A poult.
70. Can wild turkeys fly?
Answer: Yes. Wild turkeys fly short distances and roost up in trees at night. Most farm turkeys are too heavy to fly.
71. Do hen turkeys gobble?
Answer: Mostly no. Gobbling is mainly done by males. Hens cluck, purr and yelp instead.
72. What is the White House event where the president spares a turkey called?
Answer: The National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation, better known as the turkey pardon.
73. Where did turkeys first come from?
Answer: North America.
74. What do you call a group of wild turkeys?
Answer: A flock.
75. What is the fleshy flap that hangs over a turkey's beak called?
Answer: The snood.
76. What is the flap of red skin that hangs from under a turkey's beak down its throat called?
Answer: The wattle.
77. How far away can a wild turkey's gobble be heard?
Answer: Up to about a mile.
78. What happens to a tom turkey's snood and head when he gets excited?
Answer: His snood swells and his head and neck turn brighter red.
79. Which state raises the most turkeys?
Answer: Minnesota.
80. Which president made the turkey pardon a yearly tradition, starting in 1989?
Answer: George H. W. Bush.
81. Which Founding Father called the turkey a much more respectable bird than the bald eagle?
Answer: Benjamin Franklin, in a 1784 letter to his daughter. He never actually asked Congress to make the turkey the national bird.
Say an 8 year old at your table insists that turkeys cannot fly. Read question 70 out loud and let them guess first. Wild turkeys really do fly, and they roost up in trees at night, while the heavy farm turkeys most families cook cannot get off the ground. One question turns a dinner table argument into a fact they will repeat at school on Monday.
Parade, Football and Thanksgiving Tradition Trivia
In many homes, Thanksgiving Day has its own schedule: the parade in the morning, football in the afternoon and leftovers at night. These questions cover all of it, plus the shopping days that come right after.
82. What is the name of the giant balloon parade in New York City every Thanksgiving morning?
Answer: The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade.
83. Who rides in the very last float of the Macy's parade?
Answer: Santa Claus.
84. Which Peanuts beagle has flown as a Macy's parade balloon since 1968?
Answer: Snoopy.
85. What sport do many families watch on Thanksgiving Day?
Answer: Football.
86. What is a Thanksgiving morning running race called?
Answer: A turkey trot.
87. What is the day after Thanksgiving called, famous for big store sales?
Answer: Black Friday.
88. What do many families go around the table and share before they eat?
Answer: What they are thankful for.
89. What paper craft do many kids make by tracing their hand?
Answer: A handprint turkey, with the fingers as feathers and the thumb as the head.
90. In what year did the Macy's parade begin?
Answer: 1924.
91. What marched in the first Macy's parade before there were giant balloons?
Answer: Live animals borrowed from a zoo.
92. Which cartoon cat became the parade's first giant balloon, in 1927?
Answer: Felix the Cat.
93. Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving Day game almost every year since 1934?
Answer: The Detroit Lions. The only break came during World War II.
94. Which NFL team has hosted a Thanksgiving Day game since 1966?
Answer: The Dallas Cowboys.
95. What is the Monday after Thanksgiving called, when online stores hold big sales?
Answer: Cyber Monday.
96. What is the Tuesday after Thanksgiving called, a day for giving to charities?
Answer: Giving Tuesday.
97. The song Over the River and Through the Wood was first written as a poem about traveling to which holiday dinner?
Answer: Thanksgiving. Lydia Maria Child published it in 1844 about a trip to her grandfather's house.
98. Which city holds the oldest Thanksgiving Day parade in the United States?
Answer: Philadelphia, where the parade began in 1920.
99. Which city holds the oldest turkey trot, first run in 1896?
Answer: Buffalo, New York.
100. Which Florida city held a Spanish thanksgiving service in 1565, 56 years before the Plymouth harvest feast?
Answer: St. Augustine, on September 8, 1565.
Five Thanksgiving Myths These Questions Bust
A few Thanksgiving stories get repeated every year even though the record says otherwise. Here are the five that come up most, and what the evidence shows.
- Turkey was the star of the first Thanksgiving. Winslow's letter names wild fowl and five deer and never mentions turkey. Venison is the one meat we know for certain was there.
- Benjamin Franklin wanted the turkey as the national bird. He praised the turkey in a private 1784 letter to his daughter, but he never proposed it to Congress.
- Turkey makes you sleepy because of tryptophan. Turkey has about as much tryptophan as chicken. A huge meal is what makes everyone want a nap.
- The colonists called their feast Thanksgiving. They gave thanks to God that fall, but the feast itself followed an English harvest custom called Harvest Home. To the English, a day of thanksgiving meant a day of prayer, not a three-day feast with games.
- Thanksgiving has always been the fourth Thursday. Lincoln set it on the last Thursday of November. It became the fourth Thursday only after Congress passed a law in 1941.
Read the myth first and let everyone vote true or false before you reveal the answer. It makes a quick bonus round for the grown-ups who think they already know the story.
Build a Quick Round for Your Thanksgiving Table
Short on time? Tell the builder who is playing and how long you have, and it deals a round from the 100 questions above, easiest first, with the answers hidden until you tap. You can print it for a classroom or a kids' table.
Thanksgiving Table Trivia Builder
Tell it who is playing and how long you have. It deals a round from the 100 questions on this page, easiest first, with an answer key you can hide until you read them out.
More Thanksgiving Fun for Smarty Pants
Want another round? Our Thanksgiving riddle collection is perfect for the car ride, and history fans can keep digging with our history questions for kids. You can also play the podcast's holiday collection before the big day.
Want more trivia questions? Start with our full list of trivia questions for kids with answers, look back at our Halloween trivia questions and answers, and when December rolls around, our Christmas trivia will be ready for the next family gathering.
Hear More Thanksgiving Facts on the Who Smarted? Podcast
The show has covered this holiday before. It asked whether the colonists really ate eels at the first Thanksgiving, and it has run a Trusty Trivia episode on Thanksgiving every November since 2024, written out loud with the answer right behind each question. Tonight you get a table full of guesses. Over time you get a kid who keeps asking why. Press play on the Who Smarted? podcast for kids in the car to Grandma's and see who knows the answer first.
