Thanksgiving is almost here and you may be planning to use the Plan a Friendsgiving Dinner project with your class this week. A high school teacher in the NGPF network recently posted her own adaptation of the project in the FinLit Fanatics group, which garnered lots of excitement. Here’s what she did, including her resources, for you to use now or keep in mind for next year.

Part of the Budgeting unit, the Plan a Friendsgiving Dinner project gets students in groups to plan a potluck Friendsgiving dinner. They’ll work together to build a menu, calculate costs, and complete a group budget.

Lacy Smith Hall posted her tweaks to the activity: 

Here’s her project in a nutshell: 

• Have students budget out a friendsgiving dinner for 10 guests and must plan 10 dishes total for under $500
• Students work in groups and then create a menu for the party
• For fun, they bring their desserts the day before Thanksgiving break to celebrate completion 

Here are links to her Google Sheets documents broken down by day (allotted for a 45 minute class period). You can copy them and use them with your class. The budgeting one already includes the formulas to automatically add it up. 

Day 1

• Instructions & grading rubric
• Objectives for the board
• Find recipes

Day 2

• Find prices of recipes

Day 3

• Add up total cost of dishes

Day 4

• Reflection & create a menu (using Canva)

Day 5 

• Last chance to turn in project and bring desserts to class to celebrate

Here’s what a couple teachers said about Lacy’s plan: 

Thanks! I saw this on NGPF, but I like how you’ve broken it down and customized each step.

LOVE this... thanks so much for breaking it down!

We hope you find it helpful, too! 

Join the NGPF FinLit Fanatics Facebook group to access more resources and ideas like this one. 

About the Author

Hannah Rael

As NGPF's Marketing Communications Manager, Hannah (she/her) helps spread the word about NGPF's mission to improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans.