13 Colonies Worksheets

About this resource

Teaching the 13 Colonies and need something students can actually write on? This is a complete kit for one unit, written at a middle school reading level and laid out with real room to work. It starts with a three-regions chart (New England, Middle and Southern Colonies) and a chart of all thirteen colonies, each with who started it or why. Students then match the vocabulary, name the region from a clue, place each colony in its region, name the colony from a short story about why it was started, decide true or false and fix the false ones, fill in sentences, read a timeline, compare two regions, and write in ruled boxes. Three cut-and-paste sort mats finish it. It comes with answer keys, a tracker, a class grid, a team note and a family page, so nothing has to be written from scratch.

EVERYTHING INSIDE (33 pages)

• 17 student pages in 13 page types: Chart (2 pages), Match It, Name the Region, Colony Match, Which Colony? (2 pages), True or False?, Fill In the Sentence, Read the Timeline, Compare and Contrast, Explain It, Build a Paragraph, Colony Snapshot, and Cut and Paste (3 pages)
• 72 scored items on 10 pages, every answer read from the same lists that print the page, never typed by hand
• 16 clue and story items (8 clues to name the region, 8 short stories to name the colony)
• 13 colonies sorted into 3 regions on the Colony Match page
• 8 vocabulary words matched to 10 meanings (two meanings are not used)
• 6 timeline events (1607, 1620, 1632, 1636, 1681, 1732) with 4 questions
• 21 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats (8 pieces into 2 boxes, 8 pieces into 4 boxes, 5 names in order from oldest to newest)
• 3 answer keys, including what to look for on the 5 open-response pages
• 1 tracker (page, page type, items right, date, notes) and 1 whole-class progress grid
• 1 team note (a hand-off page), 1 family page and 1 filled example (an invented student)
• 1 phrase bank (17 starters, including student sentence starters for explaining and claim-evidence-reasoning), 1 binder cover and 6 divider tabs with a spine label to cut out
• Start Here and a how-to-read-a-page page

The Page Types

1. Chart, 2 pages: the three regions (land and weather, how people made a living, which colonies), then all thirteen colonies with who started each one or why. Students keep them beside them for the other pages.

2. Match It: 8 words (colony, charter, settler, region, cash crop, plantation, harbor, export) matched to lettered meanings.

3. Name the Region: 8 short clues; pick New England, Middle or Southern from a box.

4. Colony Match: 13 colonies; write N, M or S for each.

5. Which Colony?, 2 pages: 8 short stories about why a colony was started; write the colony, then explain how you know in a 3-line ruled box.

6. True or False?: 6 statements, then fix two false ones in 4-line ruled boxes.

7. Fill In the Sentence: 8 sentences and a box of 10 words (two are not used).

8. Read the Timeline: six events from 1607 to 1732, then four questions (first, how many years, which two in the 1630s, and why).

9. Compare and Contrast: pick any two regions; boxes for only in one, only in the other, in both, and how land and weather shaped the work.

10. Explain It: three prompts with 6-line boxes and sentence starters.

11. Build a Paragraph: a claim, evidence, reasoning organizer on which region you would choose, plus a counterpoint.

12. Colony Snapshot: pick one colony, say why it was started, how people made a living, draw it.

13. Cut and Paste, 3 pages: two boxes, four boxes, then five slots from oldest to newest. The pieces touch edge to edge, so cutting is a few straight lines, and every piece is over an inch each way.

Built For The Student Holding The Page

A "My name" line, one short instruction, large type, and no cartoons, mascots or clip art. Nothing on a student page is written for an adult. Ruled boxes are about a third of an inch a line: a short answer gets 3 lines and an explanation gets 5 or more. Body text is 11 point or larger. The file prints clean in black and white.

No Guessing The Answer

Wherever a student picks among printed spots (the lettered meanings, the box of words, the order of the cut pieces), the position of the right answer is checked so it never sits in the same spot three times in a row.

Textbook-Level Facts

The facts are the standard classroom ones, kept short. Years appear only where sources agree and each one is on the timeline page. Books group and date some colonies a little differently, so there is a note to use your own book where it differs, and a blank line on the tracker for your own standard or wording. The Southern Colonies page states plainly, and briefly, that plantations depended on the forced labor of enslaved people.

Type In, Or Print

The name line, every answer box and every ruled box are type-in fields in any PDF reader: click one, type, then save. The same goes for the tracker, the class grid, the team note and the family page. This is a fillable PDF; it is not a Google Slides or PowerPoint file.

Who This Is For

Upper elementary and middle school social studies classes, special education and resource rooms working on the same unit, co-taught classes, and substitutes who need a unit that is ready to hand out. The reading is written at about a grades 5-8 level.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A 13 Colonies worksheet set with the record-keeping around it. It is not a timed test, a screener, a clinical tool, or a claim about any student's age or rate of progress. There is no IEP goal language or eligibility wording anywhere in the file.