Get ready to gobble up some festive fun with our FREE “Stuff the Turkey” math games! During these Thanksgiving centers, students will strengthen their fine motor skills and number sense by using pom poms and tweezers to meticulously stuff the turkey. Beyond the feathers and festivities, these turkey activities double as engaging Thanksgiving fine motor activities, making them the perfect addition to your turkey centers. Let your little turkeys dive into a cornucopia of learning, as they practice 1:1 counting, subitizing, adding, and making 10, with these differentiated turkey math games!

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Stuff the Turkey Math Games Prep

• Brown paper cups 
• Googly eyes
• Construction paper
• Elmer’s liquid glue

In order to complete these stuff the turkey math games, you will need to create a turkey using a brown paper cup, construction paper, and googly eyes.

First, cut out the feathers using a variety of construction paper colors. Then, attach them to the cup using Elmer’s liquid glue or a hot glue gun.

To complete the turkey, add googly eyes, a beak, and a snood.

Don’t have brown paper cups… no worries! A plastic water bottle works too!

Stuff the Turkey Math Games

1:1 Counting

To practice 1:1 counting, the students will “stuff the turkey” with the correct number of each food. You can use red pom poms for the apples, yellow for the corn, and orange for the pumpkins. Don’t forget to download these “Stuff the Turkey” task cards at the end of this post!

Another fun way to practice 1:1 counting is to have the students roll a die and count that many pom poms as they use tweezers to stuff their turkey.

To make this center more challenging, you can use a ten-sided or twelve-sided die as well.

Subitizing

For this game, the students will need pom poms and my favorite tweezers for little hands, as well as the FREE ten frames which can be found at the end of this post.

First, they will choose a card and use their subitizing skills to determine how many pom poms to feed the turkey.

Then, they will use tweezers as they count the pom poms and “stuff the turkey.”

Adding

This game is great for working on addition. Students will need two dice as well as two different colored pom poms.

They will roll the dice. The first die will represent one addend and the second die will represent the other other addend.

Next, the students will “stuff the turkey” with the pom poms and record the number sentence on this FREE response sheet.

For an added challenge, use dice that have numerals on them instead of dots. This way, the students will need to use the pom poms to model the problem, rather than counting the dots on the dice.

Find the Missing Addend

This game is a bit more challenging as students will have to identify the missing addend for 10.

To play this game, the students will need two different colored pom poms, as well as the FREE turkey task cards and making 10 response sheet which found at the bottom of this post.

First, they will draw a turkey card from the task card pile. Then, they will add that many pom poms to their cup.

From there, the students will need to count on to find the missing addend to make 10.

Race to 20

Race to 20 is a fun partner activity that requires a die, two stuff the turkey cups, and 20 pom poms.

To play this game, the students take turns rolling the die and adding that many pom poms to their turkey cup using tweezers.

Whichever student stuffs the turkey with 20 pom poms first wins!

For an added challenge, you can have students use a +/- die so they can work on both adding and subtracting within 20.

More Turkey Math Games & Activities

If you are looking for an interactive and concrete way to practice making 5 and making 10, this decomposing turkey craft and math game is just what you need!

Before the kiddos make their own Decomposing Turkey, we work together as a whole class to build a large turkey. First, I choose a student to spill a cup of counters. Then, they will count and collect the feathers. As they are building the turkey, the rest of the students are using counters to model the problem on their ten frames.

On the second day, the students will spill counters and collect feathers to build their own decomposing turkey craft.

To learn more about building number sense with these decomposing turkey activities and craft, head to the full blog here!

More Turkey Activities

Your students might also enjoy a few of these 30 turkey crafts and activities for classroom!

Pair these turkey math games with any of the fiction or nonfiction turkey books on this list!

Learn all about turkeys with these 35 thematic turkey activities for all subjects!

Practice comparing numbers and counting forward and backward from a given number with these turkey number line activities!

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