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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 22 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.

The California Gold Rush

An information text written for this worksheet. In January 1848 gold was found at Sutter's Mill in California. In 1849 alone about 90,000 people arrived, from the eastern United States, Mexico, Chile, China and other places. San Francisco grew from a small town of about 1,000 people to a city of about 25,000 in less than two years. California passed a tax on foreign miners that fell hardest on Mexican and Chinese miners. For California's Native peoples the Gold Rush was a disaster. Disease, hunger and killings cut their number from about 150,000 to about 30,000 by 1870.

  1. 1. Where was gold found in 1848?
  2. 2. What happened to California's Native peoples?
  3. 3. Which miners were treated unfairly, and how?
2.Look at the source, then answer the questions.

The Exodusters

An information text written for this worksheet. Reconstruction ended in 1877, and Black families in the South faced growing violence and unfair treatment. In 1879 about 6,000 Black people from Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas moved to Kansas. They called themselves Exodusters. Kansas had entered the Union as a free state, and land could be claimed there under the Homestead Act. Some families had little money when they arrived and lived through hard first winters. Black settlers founded towns such as Nicodemus, Kansas, which still exists today.

  1. 1. What does this text not tell you about Nicodemus?
  2. 2. Why did they leave the South?
  3. 3. Why did Kansas attract them?

LessonPrint · D2.Geo.4.3-5 · Set 22 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Moving West and Making a Home

Set 22. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. At Sutter's Mill in California. 2. Disease, hunger and killings cut their number from about 150,000 to about 30,000. 3. Mexican and Chinese miners, through a tax on foreign miners.
  2. 2.1. It does not tell you how many people live in Nicodemus today. 2. They faced growing violence and unfair treatment after Reconstruction ended. 3. It had entered the Union as a free state, and land could be claimed under the Homestead Act.

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