UPDATE: Here’s a Christmas Ornament template!

Introduce a little set theory into your classes this week. Try this Thanksgiving Venn Diagram!

The sets are:

A = {x | x is a food that I totally LOVE }

B = {y | y is a food that will be at my family’s Thanksgiving dinner }

So the intersection A∩B is the set of all food that I’ll eat on Thanksgiving day!

Supplies

• Scissors
• Glue
• Magazines or newspapers
• Construction paper
• FREE downloadable template

Step 1: Prep

Have your students trace the pumpkin shape on orange construction paper and cut out. Use brown construction paper for the stems.

Glue this on a blank piece of white construction paper. For younger students, start with the pumpkin shapes already made or just use the template printout.

Children can search in magazines, newspapers or even online for images of the foods. Have them cut out both things they love and things that their family traditionally has for Thanksgiving.

Step 2: Organize

They should put things they love, but won’t be at Thanksgiving dinner, on the far left. This is the set difference A∖B.

The things they don’t like at all, but will be at Thanksgiving dinner, they can put on the far right. This is the set difference B∖A.

And the stuff they love AND they’ll eat on Thanksgiving day, they put in the “football” shape in the middle. This makes the set A∩B. It’s the intersection of A and B.

 Step 3: Glue and Label

Older students can label their sets using construction paper like I did or by writing directly on the paper. Younger students can leave the craft as-is or you can label it for them.

Display these on the walls as more holiday decorations!

Discuss and Share!

Here’s the vocabulary for the activity with some casual definitions:

• Set – collection of objects (can be numbers, but here it’s food)
• Subset – collection of objects that originally belong to a “bigger” set
• Intersection – collection of objects that belong to two other sets, that those sets have in common
• Difference – the set theory version of subtraction. What you get when you remove all the elements from a set that also belong to another set.

Make sure to say these words during the activity to enforce (or introduce) set theory concepts.

Then share this activity with others on Pinterest, Twitter and Facebook!

Enjoy!

This post may contain affiliate links. When you use them, you support us so we can continue to provide free content!