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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 5 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 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. Where did the Exodusters move to?
  2. 2. Why did Kansas attract them?
  3. 3. About how many Black people moved in 1879?
2.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 families burn for fuel?
  3. 3. Why was barbed wire useful on the Plains?

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

Answer key — Moving West and Making a Home

Set 5. Prints on its own sheet.

  1. 1.1. Kansas. 2. It had entered the Union as a free state, and land could be claimed under the Homestead Act. 3. About 6,000 Black people.
  2. 2.1. It stayed cool in summer and warm in winter, but it leaked and dirt fell from the roof. 2. Dried buffalo and cow chips. 3. It fenced fields without wood.

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