Missouri State Report Kit
Everything a student needs to research and write a report on Missouri: the reading, the maps and the pages to fill in. Nothing else to look up.
- 3 reading pages: Missouri 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 Missouri kit
To read and study
- Missouri 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 Missouri History reading page
One page on the history of Missouri 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 Missouri for at least 12,000 years. About 1,000 years ago, Native farmers built towns with large earth mounds near the big rivers. St. Louis was later nicknamed Mound City for the mounds that stood there. By the 1700s, the Osage were the most powerful nation in the region. They grew corn and hunted bison on the plains. The Missouria lived along the Missouri River.
French Towns and Fur
The French explorers Marquette and Jolliet paddled past the mouth of the Missouri River in 1673. French settlers came later to mine lead and to farm. Some brought enslaved Africans to work in the mines. Ste. Genevieve, begun around 1750, is Missouri’s oldest town. In 1764, Pierre Laclede and young Auguste Chouteau started a trading post called St. Louis. The Osage brought furs there to trade for cloth, tools and guns. In 1780, a British-led force of Native warriors attacked St. Louis. The town’s defenders drove them off.
Joining the United States
The United States bought the land from France in the Louisiana Purchase of 1803. The next year, Lewis and Clark set out from the St. Louis area to explore the West. Congress made Missouri a territory in 1812. During the War of 1812, Sauk and other warriors allied with Britain raided settlements along the rivers. Settlers built forts and fought back. In treaties signed in 1808 and 1825, the Osage gave up their Missouri land for payments and goods and moved west. Native people live in Missouri today.
The 24th State
Settlers poured in for farmland. Many came from Kentucky, Tennessee and Virginia. Some brought enslaved workers, who raised hemp and tobacco. Congress argued about whether Missouri should allow slavery. Under the Missouri Compromise of 1820, Missouri came in as a slave state and Maine as a free state. Missouri became the 24th state on August 10, 1821. Jefferson City became the capital in 1826.
A Divided State
Missouri stayed in the Union during the Civil War, but its people fought on both sides. Confederate troops won the Battle of Wilson’s Creek near Springfield in 1861. Union troops won at Westport in 1864 and held the state. Missouri ended slavery in January 1865.
Building Missouri
Steamboats crowded the river landings, and wagon trains left Independence for Santa Fe and Oregon. Railroads followed. In 1874, the Eads Bridge carried trains across the Mississippi at St. Louis. Kansas City grew around its stockyards, where cattle were sold. In 1904, St. Louis held a World’s Fair and the first Olympic Games in the United States.
Missouri through time
- 1764 St. Louis is founded
- 1803 The Louisiana Purchase
- 1812 Missouri Territory is created
- 1821 Missouri becomes the 24th state
- 1826 Jefferson City becomes the capital
- 1861 Battle of Wilson’s Creek
- 1874 The Eads Bridge opens
- 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair
- 1965 The Gateway Arch is finished
People to know
- Auguste Chouteau: Helped start St. Louis as a teenager.
- Daniel Boone: Frontiersman. Moved to Missouri in 1799.
- Scott Joplin: Ragtime composer. Wrote the Maple Leaf Rag in Sedalia.
- Laura Ingalls Wilder: Wrote the Little House books on her farm near Mansfield.
- Harry S. Truman: From Independence. The 33rd president.
Free Missouri 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.