This fun Thanksgiving Jeopardy game is great for playing after your big feast on Thanksgiving Day, at a Friendsgiving, or even any time during the lead up to Thanksgiving! With over 60 questions, this fun Thanksgiving version of the popular game show will be a huge hit at any upcoming Thanksgiving celebration event!
Jeopardy is one of the most popular game shows on TV for a reason, and we love creating our own at home Jeopardy games! We’ve created a Halloween Jeopardy game, a Christmas Jeopardy game, and even a baby shower Jeopardy – and thought it was time to make one just for Thanksgiving!
This Thanksgiving Jeopardy game is played just like the actual game show except no real money is involved. I’ll explain exactly how to play in case you haven’t watched a million episodes of Jeopardy like I have! And I have a version that you can DIY or a version with PowerPoint templates that are all ready for you to play!
Use this one with the entire family after your enjoy the turkey and mashed potatoes, use it with your class of students before you go off for Thanksgiving break, or play it with your friends at a Friendsgiving celebration. The questions are designed to work for teens and up, so you really could use it at almost any holiday celebration!
Who knows – it may just be one of your favorite Thanksgiving games you’ve ever played!
How to Play Thanksgiving Jeopardy
Depending on the group you’re playing with, there are a couple of different ways you could use these Thanksgiving Jeopardy questions and answers.
1 – Divide into teams
Start by figuring out your group size and the logistics of how to play with your group. I’ve included my suggestions below based on how many people you have playing.
- Small group (up to 5 people) – have everyone play individually and play just like the regular game show.
- Medium group (6-20 people) – split into teams of 2-4 players each and have the teams work together to answer the questions and play. You really don’t want to have more than four teams.
- Large group (21+ people) – have everyone play individually and just hand out treats, prizes, etc. for answering individual questions. Alternately, you could just play like the normal game (I recommend skipping the daily double and final Jeopardy) and have people keep track of their individual scores.
If you’re playing with a small group or a medium group split into teams and give each team a buzzer. I recommend having teams rotate who is manning the buzzer every question or every few questions so everyone gets a chance. Or just have the buzzer available to the entire team and anyone can buzz in for the team, but that does get a little more complicated.
I love these buzzers because they make different sounds so it’s easy to hear which one buzzed in first (since we’re not as professional as the actual game show).
Tip!
Enlist help. If you’re hosting and asking the questions, have one other person who can help you determine the order of the buzzers since you’ll likely be focused on asking the question, kind of like if you’re playing our Thanksgiving floor game. They can also keep score!
2 – Start the Game
Start the game by reading the $200 question in the first column on your board (it might be different depending on how you laid out your categories but in our particular game, the first question would be Pilgrims for $200.
The first team to hit their buzzer has 5 seconds to answer the question. Just like in real Jeopardy, all answers are written in the form of a question. It’s part of what makes Jeopardy fun, but it’s up to you how much of a stickler you want to be with answering in the form of a question. I personally like to do it with adults but am a little more lenient when it comes to playing with teens and kids.
- If they answer correctly – they win the money for their team AND they gain control of the board and get to choose the next question.
- If they answer incorrectly – they lose the value of the question from their score and the other teams can then buzz in right then to try and answer.
Teams only get one chance to answer the question and if they don’t know the answer, they don’t have to buzz in and try to guess (since they’ll lose points if they answer incorrectly). If a team doesn’t buzz in within five seconds, you can tell them the answer to the question and the person who was previously in control of the board chooses another question.
3 – Continue the Game
Whoever gives the correct response first wins control of the board, which means that they choose the next question. They have to choose both a question category (e.g., Thanksgiving Traditions) AND the value of question they want.
So for example, they might choose Nine-Letter Words for $200 as their question. Remove that question from the board once it’s asked so that people know which questions have not yet been answered. That’s why I love the post-it note Jeopardy board, it allows people to see quickly what’s left.
Read the question that corresponds with the value and category they chose (e.g., Gratitude for $400) and start the process again – whoever buzzes in first and answers correctly wins those points.
Keep going until you’ve gotten through all of the questions in the initial Jeopardy round then setup the board and play Double Jeopardy in the exact same way, except the values are doubled!
How do Daily Doubles Work?
There are daily doubles indicated in the questions and answers for each game set if you’d like to use them.
If someone chooses a Daily Double:
- Have the contestant who chose the daily double question wager how much they want the question to be worth, they can wager anywhere from $5 to what they have in the bank.
- Ask just that person the question and if they answer it correctly, they win the points – if they don’t, they lose the points.
Final Jeopardy
The last part of a game of Jeopardy is called Final Jeopardy and it’s one single question. While I have included this in my game sets, it’s totally optional if you actually want to do it or not!
- Read just the Final Jeopardy category to the group.
- Have everyone write down how much they wager on the question (can wager as much as they have in the bank).
- Read the question and give everyone one minute to write down their answer. (Play Jeopardy music if you want!)
- Go through answers and anyone who answered correctly wins what they wagered, anyone who doesn’t loses what they wagered.
I don’t recommend doing this for a large group of people if you’re doing it individually, just for the sake of time and having to go through individual answers, but you definitely can!
How Jeopardy Ends
The winner is the person at the end of all three rounds with the highest number of money earned. Or if you’re playing with teams, use the team’s score instead and the team with the highest total points wins!
Don’t forget to give the winning player or team a prize – everyone loves prizes! Since this is Thanksgiving Jeopardy, something Thanksgiving would be fun!
Note!
Jeopardy is typically played in three rounds – Jeopardy, Double Jeopardy (question values are doubled), and Final Jeopardy. You can choose to play one, two, or all of these rounds depending on the amount of time you have, your players, and your situation.
How to Make A Jeopardy Board
I have two different versions of a Thanksgiving Jeopardy that you can use to play your game. If you’d like to just use a version that’s all done for you – I have PowerPoint templates in my shop that you can just download and play with. You’ll need PowerPoint to use these, but they’re great!
If you don’t want a digital version, I’ve also created a set of printouts including categories and values that work with making the Post-It note Thanksgiving Jeopardy board you can see in this post!
How to make a Post-It Note Jeopardy board
- Start by printing out a copy of the blank Jeopardy printouts sheet (the one with the boxes). You can print as many as you want or just one and use that one over and over again (like I did).
- Add just standard 3×3 post-it notes to the boxes, sticky side down. You can use whatever color post-it notes you want. I just happened to have a couple of a bunch of colors, so I went with the rainbow look!
- Put that paper back into your printer, making sure to load it correctly so that the post-it notes will be printed on. And make sure your post-it notes are all pressed down firmly so they don’t get caught in the printer.
- Print the first sheet of values and they’ll print right on top of the post-it notes. Repeat for the rest of the value sheets and the category cards that go with the game you’re playing.
- Hang all of those post-it notes either up on a wall (they won’t hurt the wall), on a foam board, or like a chalkboard or white board.
Once you have added all your categories and values, you can add a heading of some sort at the top. I just printed out a header that said Thanksgiving Jeopardy for my board, but you could get super creative here if you really want!
When you’re ready for Double Jeopardy, just take down the categories (all of the value post-its will already be gone) and setup your Double Jeopardy board.
I actually recommend just setting them both up on separate foam boards (or you could do one on one side and the other on the other side) so that when you’re ready for Double Jeopardy, you can just pull up that board!
Tip!
If you want to use this as one of your Thanksgiving classroom activities, you could totally just write the numbers on squares on a chalkboard or white erase board too! It’s fun to do the actual print outs but I’m sure students won’t care if your entire game board is drawn rather than printed!
Thanksgiving Jeopardy FAQs
Do you have a PowerPoint version of the game?
I created PowerPoint versions of this game that you can get in my shop. All you have to do is download and play!
Can Jeopardy end in a tie?
Jeopardy can’t end in a tie. If there’s a tie, use one of the questions from the other Jeopardy game set (I recommend a $1000 or $2000 one) and whoever buzzes in first out of the people tied wins.
Can you play Jeopardy without buzzers?
I highly recommend the buzzers just to make it as easy as possible for you to see who buzzed in first but some other options would be to have an item that people have to grab (like I do in these party games for adults), have people raise their hand (this is tough to see the fastest), or have people yell their name when they want to buzz in.
What are categories for Thanksgiving Jeopardy?
The Thanksgiving categories used in this game include all sorts of varying categories such as things like Pilgrims, Thanksgiving Movies, and Macy’s Day Balloons! We tried to include a variety so it wasn’t pop culture or history heavy, giving everyone a fair chance!
Thanksgiving Jeopardy Questions and Answers
I’ve created a set of Thanksgiving Jeopardy questions and answers that include six regular Jeopardy categories and questions, six Double Jeopardy categories and answers, and a Final Jeopardy category and question for a total of 61 question options!
I’m not going to list all the questions and answers here, you can download those at the bottom of this post, but here are a couple of examples of the Thanksgiving Jeopardy questions and answers you’ll find in the download. There are questions about all sorts of things!
- “Thank Songs” for $600 – Most fans believe this Taylor Swift song is about Kim Kardashian (What is Thank You aIMee?)
- Nine-Letter Words for $800 – Many use a sauce made from this fruit on their turkey (What is cranberry?)
- Gratitude for $600 – Dwayne Johnson voiced character who sings the song “You’re Welcome” (Who is Maui?)
- Lions & Cowboys for $400 – NFL team that has played the most Thanksgiving Day games (Who are the Detroit Lions?)
- Talking Turkey for $1600 – This founding father called a turkey a “bird of courage” in a letter criticizing the bald eagle as the national bird (Who is Benjamin Franklin?)
More Thanksgiving Trivia Questions
If you need more Thanksgiving Jeopardy questions, you could also use questions out this Thanksgiving trivia game!
More Thanksgiving Games
If you like this Thanksgiving Jeopardy game, make sure to check out some of our other popular Thanksgiving games!
- Thanksgiving price is right – another fun game inspired by a popular game show!
- Thanksgiving bingo – a classic game that’s perfect for big groups to play at Thanksgiving!
- Turkey hunt – this is a favorite of everyone who’s played it, great for groups!
- Thanksgiving Family Feud – another popular game show turned into a Thanksgiving game you can play at home!
- Thanksgiving would you rather – a great option for the whole family!
Download the Thanksgiving Jeopardy Game
Enter your first name and email address in the form below to get the printable PDF.
You will receive a link to download the PDF to your email within minutes. If you do not see the form, click here to get to it.
If you’d prefer to not provide your email or if you want the PowerPoint games that go with these questions, you can purchase a copy in my shop here!
If you do not see the email immediately after you fill out the form, make sure to check your promotions, spam, and junk folders!
As a reminder, the PDF will include:
- Instructions to play
- DIY Jeopardy Board printables (get the PowerPoint games here)
- Jeopardy game with 60 questions across a regular and double Jeopardy game
- Final Jeopardy and Daily Double Questions for both games
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