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Moving West and Making a Home is a free printable Grade 3 to Grade 5 social studies worksheet on how settlers adapted to new land as they moved west, aligned to C3 Framework indicator D2.Geo.4.3-5. It prints 2 questions with an answer key on its own sheet of paper, in 25 versions that each ask different questions, so no two students in the class work from the same page. Print it from the browser or download it as a PDF — no account, no email.

Set 16 of 25 · the same problems every time you open this link.

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Set 1 has all 25 in a single PDF. All 25 sets ask different questions.

Moving West and Making a Home

D2.Geo.4.3-5

NameDate

Read each text, then answer the questions.

1.Look at the source, then answer the questions.

A Sod House on the Great Plains

An information text written for this worksheet. The Homestead Act of 1862 offered families 160 acres of land if they farmed it for five years. On the Great Plains there were few trees, so homesteaders cut blocks of thick prairie sod and stacked them to make walls. A sod house stayed cool in summer and warm in winter, but it leaked when it rained and dirt fell from the roof. With little wood to burn, families burned dried buffalo and cow chips for fuel. Windmills pumped water from deep underground, and barbed wire, invented in 1874, fenced fields without wood.

  1. 1. What were the good and bad sides of living in a sod house?
  2. 2. What did the Homestead Act offer families?
  3. 3. Why was barbed wire useful on the Plains?
2.Look at the source, then answer the questions.

On the Oregon Trail

An information text written for this worksheet. In the 1840s thousands of families set out from Independence, Missouri, for farmland in the Oregon Country, about 2,000 miles away. The trip took four to six months in wagons pulled by oxen. Families left in spring, so there would be grass for the animals and they could cross the mountains before the snow. Disease, especially cholera, killed more travelers than anything else. The trail crossed the lands of the Lakota, Cheyenne, Shoshone and other nations. Many meetings were for trade, but conflict grew as more wagons came.

  1. 1. What does this text not tell you about the Native nations along the trail?
  2. 2. Why did families make such a long trip?
  3. 3. How long did the trip take?

LessonPrint · D2.Geo.4.3-5 · Set 16 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Moving West and Making a Home

Set 16. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. It stayed cool in summer and warm in winter, but it leaked and dirt fell from the roof. 2. 160 acres of land if they farmed it for five years. 3. It fenced fields without wood.
  2. 2.1. It does not tell you what the Lakota, Cheyenne or Shoshone thought about the wagons. 2. For farmland in the Oregon Country. 3. Four to six months.

Last reviewed 2026-09-05. Aligned to D2.Geo.4.3-5 of the C3 Framework for Social Studies State Standards.