The Thanksgiving fish bowl game (also called the holiday salad bowl game) is an easy DIY family game for holidays to play after Thanksgiving dinner or at a harvest Friendsgiving party.
This fast-paced game is easy to learn and played in hysterical competitive rounds to keep your Thanksgiving party lively.
Plus, it’s a great ice breaker group game get everyone involved and laughing for holidays!
About The Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Game
If you’re looking for fun group trivia games or challenge games for adults or family, this is a good game!
Add this fun game activity to your fun for groups of friends of all ages from, from fun holiday games for adults, to teen games they’ll actually want to play, or easy DIY family game nights harvest fall fun.
TIP: Don’t miss our pre-made Thanksgiving themed word list for the Fish Bowl Game below! KEEP SCROLLING!
Thanksgiving Fishbowl Game Overview
The goal of the game is for each team to pull a word or phrase from the fish bowl and then guess as many prompts as possible across three rounds.
The team that scores the most points by correctly guessing the prompts wins.
Each round gets progressively more challenging, starting with verbal descriptions, moving to one-word clues, and finishing with charade (with no talking!).
The thing I love most about this game is that you can play it with supplies you have at home already, no need for special purchases or time-consuming setup!
Just a game with household items: a bowl, slips of paper, and pens/pencils.
How many players do you need to play the Thanksgiving Fishbowl Game?
To play Fishbowl for your Thanksgiving or Friendsgiving party, you need at least 4 players — two teams of two people, at a minimum.
However, the game is more fun with a larger group, like 6 to 12 players or more. That way you have enough people on each team to make the rounds more fun and competitive.
This is one of one of those games that more players you have the crazier and more fun it gets.
The more, the merrier!
How To Play The Thanksgiving Fishbowl Game Step-By-Step Instructions
Fish bowl is a word game played over three rounds, each with different rules for how players give clues to their team to guess words or phrases written on slips of paper.
The objective is for your team to guess as many prompts as possible across all rounds before the timer goes off.
Let’s start with game supplies…
What You Need For The DIY Thanksgiving Holiday Game:
✔️ At least 4 players, but more players make it more fun.
✔️ A small fish bowl people can reach into (or other container or bowl) for the word slips / pieces of paper.
*I just picked up a small, cheap fish bowl shaped decoration at the dollar store and now I use it for candles and holiday decorations or other party stuff, too!
✔️ Thin slips of paper and pens.
GAME TIP: I find cutting up Post-It Notes really fast and helpful for this game. Just discard the part with the sticky on the back. For a Thanksgiving themed game, you can can use fall colors like yellow and orange.
EASY GAME TIP: You can also pre-print words (see our list below) to save time.
✔️ Pens
GAME TIP: Do NOT use markers like we did when we first played this game. You can see the answers through the paper and teams can easily guess the word then.
✔️ A timer (1 minute per turn) — the timer on your phone is fine.
Setting Up The FishBowl Game For Thanksgiving Activities:
1. Divide into two teams of equal size (or as equal as you can get). If you’re playing with a very large group, you can split them into smaller teams of 3-4 groups.
2. Give each player 3 slips of paper and have them write down a random Thanksgiving word and/or easy holiday phrase on each slip without showing other players. (One word or phrase per slip.)
*OR, use our free word list below and make the slips of paper ahead of time.
These prompts can be Thanksgiving characters, autumn themed words, harvest decorations, Thanksgiving themed things, or actions you would do during the holidays — just tell people not to make them super complicated.
They should be well-known and everyday Thanksgiving items people will generally know (especially if you’re playing with a mix of kids and adults).
GAME TIP: I find giving people hints to get people started is helpful. You can give them examples like: pumpkin pie, pumpkins, etc.
Remind everyone that people have to guess these (including your team!), so you don’t want to make them too hard. You may get some duplicates (especially if you’re doing theme Thanksgiving words or fall-themed words), but that’s OK.
3. Fold up the slips of paper and place them in a bowl.
GAME TIP FOR SMALL GROUPS: The larger the group, the more slips of paper you will have. If you are playing with a smaller group but want longer game play, give each player 4-5 pieces of paper to write their word or phase prompts on.
Directions On How to Play Each Round of Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Game
Fish bowl is played in three rounds:
- Describe It
- Give One Word
- Act It Out
Before you get started, remind everyone that the theme is fall Thanksgiving and every word will have something to do with Thanksgiving, harvest, or autumn. It can broad, from Thanksgiving turkey to playing football, as long as it stays within the fall theme.
Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Round 1: Describe It (like Taboo Game)
This Round: Describe the word or phrase using as many clues as possible without saying any part of the word or phrase.
1. One player from Team A draws a slip from the bowl and has 1 minute to describe the word or phrase using as many clues as possible, without saying the word or using gestures.
2. Team members try to guess the word or phrase.
If the team guesses correctly, they keep that slip. The same player quickly draws a new paper prompt and tries to describe that one.
If they’re stuck, the player can pass once per round.
3. Keep going and try to get your teammates to guess as many word or phrase prompts in 1 minute.
4. After 1 minute, Team B takes their turn and repeats the process.
Alternative back and forth between teams in 1 minute intervals until all slips of paper in the bowl are gone.
5. At the end of the round, tally scores by counting the number of prompts (slips of paper) each team guessed correctly.
Write the scores down and loudly proclaim which team is the current loser. (That last part is optional, of course. It’s just how we play.)
6. Fold the slips of paper and place them back in the fish bowl, shake to mix well, and move to Round 2.
IMPORTANT NOTE: If the announcing player accidentally says part of the word for this round, they are immediately out. The timer stops and play passes to next team.
For example, if the phrase is pumpkin pie and they say, “favorite pie for Thanksgiving” they are out because they said part of the guessing phrase (“pie”).
THANKSGIVING GAME REMINDER FOR THIS ROUND: If someone guesses the word, they put the slip of paper aside and then pull another slip of paper from the fish bowl and start the process over. Keep going to try to get as many in before the timer runs out.
Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Round 2: Give One Word (like the Password Game)
This Round: Only say one word to describe the word or phrase. For example, if the word is “pumpkin” the clue giver may say “orange” or “pie” (but can’t say “pumpkin”).
1. A different team (and different designated players) start first this round. (Or, you can play the team who won the last round gets to go first.)
2. The designated player from the new team draws a slip of paper prompt out of the fishbowl.
This time the clue-giver can only say one word to describe the word or phrase, but can’t say part of the word or phrase.
3 If the team guesses, quickly choose another slip of paper and start the process again until the timer goes off.
You can pass one time only per player prompting (per round), if needed.
If the player says more than one word or accidentally says part of the word or phrase, then the turn ends and play passes to next team with the timer reset.
4. After 1 minute, the next team takes their turn and repeats the process.
Alternative back and forth between teams in 1 minute intervals until all slips of paper in the bowl are gone.
5. At the end of the round, tally scores by counting the number of prompts (slips of paper) each team guessed correctly.
Add the score to the scores from Round 1 for each team.
6. Fold the slips of paper and place them back in the fish bowl, shake to mix well, and move to Round 3.
GAME TIP: It’s helpful if you have a good memory and can remember some of the words from Round 1!
Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Round 3: Act It Out (like Charades)
This Round: Act out words or phrases without using any words (which is not my favorite round, tbh).
1. For the final round, players act out the word or phrase without speaking.
For example, if my word is “turkey” I might pretend to flap my wings and walk around.
2. Teams alternate 1-minute turns until all the clues are used, like in previous rounds.
3. This round ends the game.
Fish Bowl Game Scoring
- After each round, tally the number of correctly guessed slips for each team for a running total of rounds.
- At the end of the third round, the team with the most points wins!
90 Ideas For Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Game Words And Fun Game Phrases
If you want to print your own words and have everything ready for your game night when guests arrive, you can steal our list of words for the Thanksgiving Fish Bowl Game! (Personal use only!)
Creative and Fun Ideas For Thanksgiving Holiday Fish Bowl Game Word List
Thanksgiving
Harvest
Cornucopia
Mayflower
Pilgrim
Thanksgiving Parade
Black Friday
Friendsgiving
Family Dinner
Thankful
Gratitude
Autumn
Fall Foliage
Harvest Moon
Pumpkin Patch
Hayride
Corn Maze
Apple Orchard
Bonfire
Scarecrow
Turkey
Stuffing
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Mashed Potatoes
Green Bean Casserole
Sweet Potatoes
Leftovers
Wishbone
Turkey
Pumpkin
Harvest
Autumn
Feast
Gravy
Stuffing
Cranberry
Corn
Haystack
Acorn
Bonfire
Scarecrow
Orchard
Cider
Leaves
Sweater
Flannel
Football
Pie
Drumstick
Wishbone
Mayflower
Pilgrim
Cornucopia
Thankful
Frost
Hayride
Pecan
Gourd
Carving a Turkey
Pulling a Wishbone
Raking Leaves
Jumping in Leaves
Picking Apples
Picking a Pumpkin
Carving a Pumpkin
Going on a Hayride
Walking Through a Corn Maze
Building a Scarecrow
Eating Pumpkin Pie
Eating Thanksgiving Dinner
Passing the Gravy
Making Mashed Potatoes
Stuffing a Turkey
Baking a Pie
Watching Football
Playing Football
Taking a Family Photo
Falling Asleep After Dinner
Black Friday Shopping
Drinking Apple Cider
Roasting Marshmallows
Sitting by a Bonfire
Carrying a Giant Pumpkin
Chasing a Turkey
Turkey Waddle
Blowing Leaves
Picking Corn
Setting the Thanksgiving Table
Happy Thanksgiving!
I hope you have fun with the Thanksgiving fish bowl game with family and friends.
