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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 25 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. Why did homesteaders build houses out of sod?
  2. 2. What does this text not tell you about the land before the homesteaders came?
  3. 3. What did the Homestead Act offer families?
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. Why did they leave the South?
  2. 2. What does this text not tell you about Nicodemus?
  3. 3. What made the first years in Kansas difficult?

LessonPrint · D2.Geo.4.3-5 · Set 25 · free to copy for classroom use

Answer key — Moving West and Making a Home

Set 25. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. There were few trees on the Great Plains. 2. It does not tell you which Native nations lived on the land before the homesteaders. 3. 160 acres of land if they farmed it for five years.
  2. 2.1. They faced growing violence and unfair treatment after Reconstruction ended. 2. It does not tell you how many people live in Nicodemus today. 3. Some families had little money and lived through hard first winters.

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