Arkansas State Report Kit
Everything a student needs to research and write a report on Arkansas: the reading, the maps and the pages to fill in. Nothing else to look up.
- 3 reading pages: Arkansas fun facts, History, and Land and Work
- 5 maps: landmarks, cities, county, outline, and rivers and lakes
- An 8-page My State Report booklet, from fast facts to a trip plan and a license plate to design
- A pennant to cut out and hang, two map skills sheets and a 10-question reading quiz
- Answer keys for the quiz, the fast facts and the map sheets
- One print-ready PDF, 23 pages, black and white, US Letter
Look inside
Read it, map it, write it.
The reading pages and maps hold every answer the booklet asks for. About one third of the booklet is looking things up. The rest asks students to choose, plan and explain.
What is in the Arkansas kit
To read and study
- Arkansas fun facts: six short true stories, By the Numbers and Did You Know
- History: the state’s story in order, with a timeline, people to know and words to know
- Land and Work: the land and climate, what the state grows, makes and mines, and how one leads to the other
- Five maps, including a rivers, lakes and neighbors map with a letter key
To fill in and make
- My State Report booklet: cover, Fast Facts, My Map, State Symbols, My Trip, Think Like a Geographer, Design a License Plate and Dig Deeper
- A pennant with the state’s name and outline, to color, cut out and hang
- Name the Cities and Name the Rivers and Lakes sheets, each with a word bank
- A 10-question reading quiz, with answer keys for everything that has one right answer
Free: the Arkansas History reading page
One page on the history of Arkansas for grades 3 to 5, free to print in color or black and white. It is the second reading page in the kit.
The First Peoples
People have lived in Arkansas for at least 12,000 years. More than 1,000 years ago, Native people near the Arkansas River built tall mounds of earth for ceremonies. Later, the Caddo farmed in the southwest. The Quapaw had towns where the Arkansas River meets the Mississippi. The Osage hunted in the Ozarks. These nations traded with each other and sometimes fought over hunting land.
Spain and France
In 1541, Hernando de Soto led a Spanish army across the Mississippi River. His soldiers were the first Europeans in Arkansas. They looked for gold, fought several Native towns and left. In 1673, the French explorers Marquette and Jolliet reached the Quapaw towns. France claimed the land, and French traders built Arkansas Post in 1686. The Quapaw became their allies. Spain held the post by 1783, when British raiders and Chickasaw fighters attacked it. Spanish soldiers and Quapaw warriors drove them away.
A Territory and Its Treaties
The United States bought the land from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. Settlers came for farmland. The army built Fort Smith in 1817 to keep peace between the Osage and the Cherokee, who were fighting over hunting grounds. Congress made Arkansas a territory in 1819. In treaties signed from 1808 to 1828, the Osage, Quapaw, Cherokee and Choctaw gave up their Arkansas land for payments and land in other places, mostly farther west. In the 1830s, the government moved more nations from the East to what is now Oklahoma, and their routes crossed Arkansas. Native people still live in Arkansas today.
Statehood and the Civil War
Arkansas became the 25th state on June 15, 1836. Farmers grew cotton on plantations along the rivers. Enslaved Black people did much of that work. By 1860 they were about one of every four people in Arkansas. In 1861, Arkansas left the United States and joined the Confederacy. The Union army won the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862 and captured Little Rock in 1863. The Union won the war in 1865, and slavery ended.
Building Arkansas
After the war, workers laid railroads across the state. Towns grew along the tracks. The University of Arkansas opened in Fayetteville in 1872. Sawmills cut pine forests into lumber. Miners dug the ore used to make aluminum. In 1921, drillers struck oil near El Dorado. In 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Walmart store in Rogers. In 1971, new locks and dams let barges travel the Arkansas River all the way to Oklahoma.
Arkansas through time
- 1541 De Soto crosses the Mississippi
- 1686 Arkansas Post is founded
- 1803 The Louisiana Purchase
- 1819 Arkansas Territory is created
- 1836 Arkansas becomes the 25th state
- 1863 Union army takes Little Rock
- 1921 Oil is found near El Dorado
- 1962 The first Walmart opens
- 1971 Barges reach Oklahoma by river
People to know
- Henri de Tonti: Founded Arkansas Post in 1686.
- Hattie Caraway: First woman elected to the U.S. Senate.
- Douglas MacArthur: Army general. Born in Little Rock in 1880.
- Maya Angelou: Writer and poet. Grew up in Stamps.
- Sam Walton: Opened the first Walmart in 1962.
Free Arkansas maps
Each of these maps is free to print on its own page. The kit puts them in one file with the reading pages and the booklet.