Bring the spirit of gratitude and creativity into your classroom with these fun and festive Thanksgiving bulletin board ideas! From turkeys made of thankful notes to colorful fall leaves filled with student reflections, these displays help celebrate the season while encouraging kindness and teamwork. Whether you teach preschool or middle school, you’ll find easy, eye-catching designs that make your classroom feel warm, welcoming, and full of Thanksgiving cheer.
25+ Thanksgiving bulletin board ideas
I’m So Grateful
Kindergarten instructors who adore bulletin boards can combine Thanksgiving, turkeys, and fall scenery into a stunning display.
Each student’s name can be written on the autumn leaves. If you need to speed up the decorating process, take a look at our Thanksgiving Tree Leaves template. How do you do it? First, on a display wall, make a paper tree trunk. A genuine tree limb placed in a pot would be an alternative. Second, give each pupil one or more leaves on which to jot down something for which they are thankful. Third, adhere the leaves to the “Gratitude Tree” wall decoration or string them up to hang them from the actual branches. Additionally, students might want to add images and pictures to the gratitude tree display.
Thank You, Turkey
The perfect time of year to make a bulletin board for Thanksgiving is when you use crow feathers. This adorable Give Thanks bulletin board can be made by teachers and students together. On their unique feathers, each kid jots down their gratitude.
The creation process can be sped up by creating your own lettering or by using blank letter and number cutouts. Depending on the grade level you’re teaching this year, have kids attempt cutting out their own feather shapes, or print our ready-to-cut feathers.
Gratitude Is Ours
What more could a Thanksgiving message board include than fall foliage and gratitude? Once they’ve completed coloring, instruct your kids to write their personal list of gratitude on their set of leaves before putting it all together to create a unique wreath.
Your hallway or classroom will have a vibrant display of appreciation to mark the season when the board is finished and loaded with leaves.
Incredibly Grateful
Being grateful fosters optimism and attentiveness. Secondary teachers can create this cheery Thanksgiving bulletin board by asking each of their pupils to write what they are grateful for on a separate leaf.
Students can create their own unique shapes and sizes by using this template for appreciation tree leaves. Even with a Gratitude Tree, you can decide to keep practicing gratitude all year round. Students write something they are thankful for on a leaf-shaped piece of paper. The class appreciation tree is then updated with its leaf. Crepe paper was used to make the tree trunk and grass, and an appreciation tree’s leaves template should be used to make the leaves.
I’m Grateful For A Latte
The Teach Starter team created this latte-filled Thanksgiving bulletin board because they also enjoy coffee and are aware of how much it is loved by instructors. Along with doughnut and latte components and templates for expressing gratitude in the form of coffee cups, I’m grateful for a latte comes with. With the help of a doughnut, marshmallow, or pumpkin cup, students can write what they are grateful for and adhere their cups to the board. Is anyone else a fan of pumpkin spice?
Expressing Thanks
You don’t have much time to set up a bulletin board. As a gift from our preschool teacher Kayla Matthews, we have a “quick and easy” Thanksgiving bulletin board. To give your mini turkeys a little personality after tracing and cutting out your students’ handprints, use googly eyes. The handprints will be different colors.
We Are Grateful For Our Baby Turkeys
This cheery bulletin board display expresses what everyone is thinking throughout this Christmas season: how appreciative we are of one another! To add a little diversity, you could either make the turkeys yourself or have each pupil or member of staff make their own.
Grateful Hands
Students can participate hands-on with this board! The pupils could either place their hands directly on the board or the feathers beforehand.
They could find that painting the bulletin board is an enjoyable pastime that gets them up and moving!
“I’m Grateful For…”
Give children rectangles of construction paper to compose a little poem on that starts with the phrase “I am Thankful For…” Ask them to write their name on the back of the paper after folding it in half. Only the names should be visible on each student’s card, which should be pinned to the bulletin board. Viewers can open the cards on the bulletin board to read the poems written by each kid.
Thanks, Everyday
This board is a fantastic method to help everyone remember the true meaning of the Thanksgiving holiday. We all have much to be thankful for.
We Give Thanks For
This lovely Thanksgiving bulletin board concept is perfect for kindergarten instructors to display the creativity and thankfulness of their kids. We are amazed by how these feathered buddies’ vibrant colors stand out against a black background!
Using our Thanksgiving craftivity, you can quickly create a copy of this board for yourself. Before coloring each turkey feather and putting the bird together, students will use the lined template to write what they are grateful for. Request that your pupils bring their turkeys home before the big meal so they can enjoy them with their families.
Please Join Our Flock
This is one of many boards that will assist you if you want to stick with the Thanksgiving color scheme (brown, yellow, orange, and red)! This is a sweet idea that works well as a bulletin board and also looks beautiful running along the top and bottom of a whiteboard.
Get Your Tail Feathers Moving!
The best ideas for bulletin boards are the simplest ones! One of the simplest and least expensive hobbies is making crafts out of paper plates. This board combines a simple Thanksgiving paper plate craft with a simple Thanksgiving bulletin board!
Consume A Good Book
This board might be helpful if your kids need some ideas for wonderful books to devour this season. Put your favorite books on each of the feathers.
What Is For Supper?
Request that kids bring in their preferred Thanksgiving dishes. Students should record their recipes to place on the bulletin board after cutting out Thanksgiving-themed shapes from colored construction paper. The board will resemble a feast fit for Thanksgiving! Use this lesson on the First Thanksgiving to teach children interesting holiday trivia like the beginnings of the first Thanksgiving feast and some of the delicacies that would have been offered while they were working.
Thanksgiving Class Polling Board
Make a survey to find out which Thanksgiving elements, such as the turkey, pies, and family time, are the students’ favorites. Create a bar graph using construction paper and post it on the bulletin board to display the results. Talk about it with the class.
Think about guiding your pupils through the procedures for collecting data as well as producing and analyzing bar graphs utilizing your understanding of data as well as graphs.
Bulletin Board For Thirteen Colonies
Make a map of the thirteen colonies for the classroom bulletin board, and assign the students the task of researching various settlements in each colony. Place pins in the locations of the villages and instruct students to make index cards with fascinating details about the colonists who lived there. You should have a thorough understanding of colonial life and the events leading up to the initial Thanksgiving as well as the history of the colonies.
Month Of Native American Heritage
November is Native American Heritage Month, and there is plenty of area to recognize this significant month even though this board isn’t about Thanksgiving. If you’re discussing the First Thanksgiving, for instance, you should include Wampanoag perspectives and be careful to avoid prejudices and misleading narratives about American history.
Along with your Thanksgiving celebrations, you might also utilize this month to just recognize Native Americans and everything they have contributed to America. Teachers will likely celebrate with their classes by reading aloud from books in the school library that are written by or about Native Americans.
Taking A Trip Down Turkey Lane
If you want something a bit more special for Thanksgiving, try this original board concept!
Consume More Chicken
If you’re a fan of a particular fast-food chicken franchise, this is a really nice concept.
A Trip Through Time Machine
Thanksgiving is a special day with a long history. The majority of teachers want to use this chance to decorate for the holidays to highlight the potential educational benefits of creating a Thanksgiving-themed bulletin board. One concept is to transform your bulletin board into a time-traveling window that offers a glimpse of what might possibly be the initial Thanksgiving. The window panes are two parallel black paper strips. Attach cutouts of Pilgrim and Native American figures participating in the first Thanksgiving beneath the black strips. Even better, why not let the kids design the figures that will be shown in your “window”? by giving kids access to materials for making art, such as building paper, bird feathers, old clothes, etc..
Framing
There are many different ways you can decorate the frame of the board while still keeping it functional for pinning important documents, if you prefer to have your bulletin board framed out rather than filled with art (for example, you need to use the inside of the bulletin board to post grades, assignments, etc.). One suggestion is to print each student’s handprint, cut it out, and have them each write something they are grateful for on their hand. Die-cuts and other entertaining supplies from the craft store, like artificial leaves, can also be used. Examples of border themes that you can utilize with your bulletin board include pumpkins, pilgrims, cornucopias, turkeys, etc.
Perfect Image
Including hand-drawn or photographed depictions of the one item that each of your pupils is grateful for is another method to spruce up your bulletin board. A drawing or object representing their family, a plush animal, a favorite cuisine, etc., could be submitted. Make sure that each student’s name is written on each piece of artwork or photograph. You may also conduct a game on the bulletin board where the names of the students are hidden and the class is asked to guess what their friends are thankful for. Before your class celebration, decorate the bulletin board. See how many children can accurately relate their peers to their artwork.
Thanksgiving food
Perhaps you want something with which you can be a little more creative because you are sick of the typical Pilgrims and Native Americans decorating Thanksgiving bulletin board motif. Why not therefore try concentrating on the Thanksgiving cuisine? We’re all in agreement that we like food. An excellent place to start is by cutting out various food items, such as fruits, vegetables, pumpkin pie, turkey, mashed potatoes, etc. On Thanksgiving Day, though, don’t only stick to the more conventional dishes. Ask your pupils to share the special Thanksgiving dishes that their families like with the rest of the class. Instruct these kids to bring a sample of their meal for their classmates to enjoy, and be sure to post a cutout or drawing of that student’s food on the notice board.
Handprint Artwork
For younger classes to partake in around Thanksgiving, handprint art is the ideal artistic activity. Give each child a handprint to trace and cut out or to paint with their fingers. A bird’s body and head are all that is required to complete the amusing Thanksgiving turkey; the feathers are created by the fingers of each child’s hands. On your bulletin board, exhibit your artwork of a flock of turkeys.
A Month Of Thanksgiving
A class can work together on this interactive whiteboard! Every day, the class reads a student’s list of things for which they are grateful. These encounters foster greater interpersonal communication among the students.
Exactly Who Is Hiding In The Pumpkin Patch?
This is a good autumnal idea! This example includes the names of the students up above and their pictures down below, but you could turn it into a game. Ask the class to identify the person hidden below by writing a clue or a single word that the student has chosen.
Final Thoughts
Thanksgiving is the perfect time to fill your classroom with creativity, gratitude, and togetherness. These Thanksgiving bulletin board ideas not only brighten your space but also remind students of the importance of thankfulness and kindness. Whether you choose a simple design or a collaborative class project, each display becomes a celebration of learning and appreciation — a true reflection of the Thanksgiving spirit.
