Lewis and Clark Worksheets

About this resource

Teaching Lewis and Clark and need something students can actually write on? This is a complete kit for one short unit, written at a middle school reading level and laid out with real room to work. It starts with two plain-words charts that cover ten topics: the Louisiana Purchase, Jefferson's plan, the Corps of Discovery, the trip up the Missouri River, the winter at Fort Mandan, Sacagawea, the Rocky Mountains, the Pacific coast, journals and maps, and the trip home. Students then match the vocabulary, sort statements into four themes (the deal, the team, the trail, the notes), tell which topic fits a real-life situation and how they know, decide true or false and fix the false ones, fill in sentences, build a timeline from clues, read two short passages, think through an invented case study with no outcome given, 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: Plain-Words Chart (2 pages), Match It, Name the Theme, Which Topic? (2 pages), True or False?, Fill In the Sentence, Build the Timeline, Read the Passage, Case Study, Explain It, Build a Paragraph, Topic Snapshot, and Cut and Paste (3 pages)
• 69 scored items on 10 pages, every answer read from the same lists that print the page, never typed by hand
• 16 invented scenarios and statements (8 to name the theme, 8 to match to a topic of the chart) plus 1 invented case study with no outcome given
• 8 vocabulary words matched to 10 meanings (two meanings are not used)
• 1 timeline with 5 steps to fill in from clues
• 2 short reading passages, written for this file
• 26 cut-and-paste pieces on 3 sort mats (8 pieces into 2 boxes, 8 pieces into 4 boxes, 10 names into 10 numbered slots)
• 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. Plain-Words Chart, 2 pages: Topics 1-5 and 6-10, each with a short name, what it says in plain words, and a way to picture it. Students keep it beside them for the other pages.

2. Match It: 8 words (expedition, territory, journal, interpreter, current, route, map, purchase) matched to lettered meanings.

3. Name the Theme: 8 short statements; pick the deal, the team, the trail or the notes from a box.

4. Which Topic?, 2 pages: 8 scenarios; write the topic number from the chart, then explain how you know in a 3-line ruled box.

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

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

7. Build the Timeline: five steps, a clue for each, and a box of five events. Write each event on its step, earliest first, then look at the dates and explain why the trip took so long.

8. Read the Passage: two short passages about the Corps setting out in 1804 and crossing the mountains in 1805, with four questions.

9. Case Study: an invented story about a made-up place (River Valley) with a team, a river, a winter near a village, a woman who speaks the next nation's language, journals and a map. Match the story to topics of the chart, say why a language helper matters, give what a team leader and a villager might say, and name what you would want to know first. No outcome is given.

10. Explain It: four prompts with ruled boxes and sentence starters.

11. Build a Paragraph: a claim, evidence, reasoning organizer on whether the trip of the Corps of Discovery was a success, plus a counterpoint from a Native nation's side.

12. Topic Snapshot: pick one topic of the chart, say it in your own words, give an example or a fact and draw it.

13. Cut and Paste, 3 pages: two boxes (places and people), four boxes, then ten numbered slots. 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 topic summaries are the standard, textbook-level kind, kept short. The dates are 1803 (the Louisiana Purchase), 1804 (the Corps sets out from near St. Louis), the winter of 1804 to 1805 (Fort Mandan), 1805 (the Rocky Mountains and the Pacific coast) and 1806 (the return to St. Louis in September). Textbooks describe some details differently, so the answer key says to accept a timeline order your own text supports. Every scenario, passage and the case study are made up for practice. There is a blank line on the tracker for your own standard or wording.

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

Middle school social studies, U.S. history and westward expansion unit 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 6-8 level.

What This Is, And What It Is Not

A Lewis and Clark 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.