Mississippi State Report Kit
Everything a student needs to research and write a report on Mississippi: the reading, the maps and the pages to fill in. Nothing else to look up.
- 3 reading pages: Mississippi 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 Mississippi kit
To read and study
- Mississippi 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 Mississippi History reading page
One page on the history of Mississippi 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 Mississippi for more than 10,000 years. Long ago, Native farmers piled up earth to make flat-topped mounds for temples and leaders’ houses. Emerald Mound, near Natchez, covers about eight acres. By the 1600s, the Choctaw lived in the middle and south, the Chickasaw in the north and the Natchez in the southwest.
Spain and France
In 1540, the Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto led an army into Mississippi. He camped for the winter beside Chickasaw towns and demanded men to carry his supplies. Chickasaw warriors attacked his camp at night and burned it. De Soto reached the Mississippi River in 1541. In 1699, the French built a fort on the coast at what is now Ocean Springs. In 1716, they built Fort Rosalie, which grew into the town of Natchez.
Wars with the French
French farmers wanted more Natchez land. In 1729, Natchez warriors attacked Fort Rosalie and killed more than 200 colonists. French soldiers and their Choctaw allies then defeated the Natchez, and the survivors were captured or scattered. The Chickasaw traded with the British instead. In 1736, they beat a French army at the Battle of Ackia, near today’s Tupelo.
Territory and State
After the American Revolution, the land became part of the United States. Congress made Mississippi a territory in 1798. Settlers came to plant cotton. In the Creek War of 1813 and 1814, Choctaw warriors under Chief Pushmataha fought beside American soldiers. Mississippi became the 20th state on December 10, 1817. In treaties signed in 1830 and 1832, the Choctaw and Chickasaw gave up the rest of their Mississippi land, and most were moved west to what is now Oklahoma. Some Choctaw stayed, and the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians has its government near Philadelphia today.
Cotton and the Civil War
Cotton became the state’s main crop. Much of it grew on large farms called plantations, where enslaved Black people did most of the work. In 1861, Mississippi and ten other Southern states left the United States and formed the Confederacy. The Union army captured Vicksburg in 1863. The Confederacy lost the war in 1865, and slavery ended.
Building Mississippi
After the war, workers cleared the swampy Delta forest for farms. Railroads crossed the state, and sawmills in the pine woods cut millions of logs into lumber. In 1927, the Mississippi River broke through its banks and flooded much of the Delta. A shipyard opened in Pascagoula in 1938 and built ships during World War II. In the 1960s, NASA began testing moon rocket engines near the coast.
Mississippi through time
- 1541 De Soto reaches the Mississippi River
- 1699 The French build a fort on the coast
- 1729 Natchez attack Fort Rosalie
- 1798 Mississippi Territory is created
- 1817 Mississippi becomes the 20th state
- 1830 Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek
- 1863 Vicksburg surrenders
- 1927 The great flood covers the Delta
- 1938 The Pascagoula shipyard opens
People to know
- Pushmataha: Choctaw chief who fought beside American soldiers.
- Hiram Revels: Of Natchez. First Black U.S. senator, in 1870.
- Eudora Welty: Writer from Jackson. Won the Pulitzer Prize.
- B.B. King: Blues guitarist born near Itta Bena, in the Delta.
- Walter Payton: Football star born in Columbia.
Free Mississippi 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.