Turkey Learning Activities

With Thanksgiving right around the corner as I write this, it seems like a goof time to incorporate some turkey-themed learning into your classroom, homeschool or after school activities. Check out these fun learning activities all about turkey!

First let’s talk about real turkeys. Learn about and label the parts of a turkey with this printable worksheet from Living Life and Learning, and check out other turkey worksheets they have available.

Talk about the life cycle of a turkey with this worksheet pack from 123 Homeschool 4 Me. This one is a whopping 74 pages and includes life cycle, science terms and vocabulary, math and literacy activities all with a turkey theme. And it’s free!

The Stay at Home Teacher has three cute turkey activities, including scissor practice, color by code and a shapes roll and play game. These are great for little learners because there’s no reading involved.

Add a fine motor activity with a turkey twist to learning to count with this idea from Pre-K Pages. It’s pretty easy to set up and involves counting and stringing beads, so you’re learning and working the fingers at the same time! (There’s a printable for the turkey on their page if you need it.)

Turner Tots has several turkey and Thanksgiving themed math activities (check the post for ideas and the printables are available at Teachers Pay Teachers). I love this stuff the turkey one, which uses different colored pompoms to practice counting.

And of course there are a lot of STEM activities that you can change up to have a turkey theme. MomBrite did a STEM challenge to build a cage out of toothpicks and marshmallows to keep the turkeys safe. Friends Art Lab has a fun and colorful fizzy turkey science activity. Or make a melting turkey with this idea from 123 Homeschool 4 Me. You can even do an egg drop with a turkey twist with this tutorial from STEAMsational. So fun!

Also make sure to check out my roundup of ideas for disguising a turkey, which is always a fun Thanksgiving activity for kids.

Growing Up Ladybug and How to Become a Butterfly are both by Stepanka Sekaninova and illustrated by Linh Dao, and they came out at the same time and are on similar themes, so let’s look at them together.

Growing Up Ladybug is narrated by Mariella, a seven-spot ladybug. She talks about the parts of a ladybug, where they live, different kinds of ladybugs, why humans love them, their defenses against predators and the life cycle of a ladybug.

The drawings are cute if not always scientifically accurate, it’s not in such a way that’s likely to confuse kids (who probably already know that ladybug mamas don’t push their larval babies around in strollers, for instance.

It’s a good general description of the life cycle of a lady bug and why we like having them around.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Similarly, How to Become a Butterfly covers the life cycle of a butterfly, starting with caterpillars eating burning nettle leaves. (Here Amanda is the narrator.) The book talks about a few of the more than 18,000 daytime butterflies in the world as well as other creatures that live in the meadow (there’s that ladybug again, along with crickets, bees and other bugs).

It also covers some of the enemies of caterpillars like wasps and spiders, and the defenses that caterpillars use to try to prevent being eaten. It illustrates how caterpillars grow and change as they molt and prepare to pupate, and what a caterpillar looks like before and while it is forming its chrysalis. And while the book uses the word metamorphasis it doesn’t really talk about what happens between the caterpillar forming a chrysalis and the butterfly hatching.

This butterfly is a peacock butterfly, and once it hatches the book covers the parts of a butterfly and the life cycle. It also talks about nocturnal moths (though it says nocturnal butterflies are “usually called moths” when moths are actually a different species) and what butterflies do at night.

I’m maybe a little hard on this book because my daughter is a butterfly expert from way back, but it is still cute and good for the very basic basics of the butterfly life cycle.

Both books would be fun additions to your bookshelf for younger kids starting to learn about different animals or who have an interest in insects.

About the book: 32 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Albatross Media. Suggested retail price $16.95.

Have you read?

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