New Mexico State Report Kit
Everything a student needs to research and write a report on New Mexico: the reading, the maps and the pages to fill in. Nothing else to look up.
- 3 reading pages: New Mexico 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
Teaching all 50 states? Get every kit for $39.
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 New Mexico kit
To read and study
- New Mexico 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 New Mexico History reading page
One page on the history of New Mexico 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 New Mexico for thousands of years. The Ancestral Pueblo people built the great houses of Chaco Canyon. Their descendants settled along the Rio Grande and at places such as Acoma and Zuni. They grew corn, beans and squash. They built villages of stone and adobe, or mud brick. Later the Navajo and Apache came from the north. They hunted, farmed, traded with the villages and sometimes raided them.
Spain Comes North
In 1540, the Spanish explorer Coronado came looking for cities of gold. He found farm villages. The Spanish called them pueblos, their word for towns. In 1598, Juan de Oñate led settlers up the Rio Grande. They brought horses, sheep, wheat and iron tools. Santa Fe was founded in 1610. Priests built churches in the pueblos. Spanish leaders made Pueblo people pay in corn and labor and banned their ceremonies.
The Pueblo Revolt
In 1680, a leader named Popé planned a revolt. Runners carried knotted cords to count down the days. Pueblo fighters rose together, killed about 400 settlers and priests, and drove the rest south to El Paso. The Pueblos ruled themselves for 12 years. In 1692, Diego de Vargas led the Spanish back. After that the Pueblos kept their villages and their ceremonies. Albuquerque was founded in 1706.
Mexico and the United States
Mexico won its freedom from Spain in 1821. That year traders opened the Santa Fe Trail, a wagon road from Missouri. In 1846, during a war with Mexico, an American army took Santa Fe without a battle. Mexico gave up the land in an 1848 treaty. New Mexico became a territory in 1850. In 1862, Confederate soldiers from Texas invaded. Union soldiers wrecked their supply wagons at Glorieta Pass, and the Confederates went home.
The Navajo and Apache Wars
Navajo and Apache bands raided ranches and villages for sheep and horses. Settlers and soldiers raided them back. Both sides took captives and kept them as servants, until Congress outlawed it in the 1860s. In 1864, the Army burned Navajo crops and marched more than 8,000 Navajo hundreds of miles to Fort Sumner. An 1868 treaty let them go home to a reservation. Apache bands fought on until 1886. Today 19 Pueblos, the Navajo Nation and Apache tribes have their governments in New Mexico.
Building New Mexico
Railroads arrived around 1880. Ranchers shipped cattle and wool, and miners dug coal and copper. New Mexico became the 47th state on January 6, 1912. In World War II, Navajo code talkers sent radio messages the enemy could not read. Scientists at Los Alamos built the first atomic bomb and tested it here in 1945.
New Mexico through time
- 1540 Coronado arrives
- 1610 Santa Fe is founded
- 1680 The Pueblo Revolt
- 1706 Albuquerque is founded
- 1821 Santa Fe Trail opens
- 1848 Joins the United States
- 1868 Navajo treaty is signed
- 1912 New Mexico is the 47th state
- 1945 First atomic bomb test
People to know
- Popé: Pueblo leader of the 1680 revolt
- Manuelito: Navajo leader who signed the 1868 treaty
- Maria Martinez: Potter from San Ildefonso Pueblo
- Georgia O’Keeffe: Painter of New Mexico’s hills and sky
- Robert Goddard: Tested early rockets near Roswell
Free New Mexico 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.