Vocabulary
What does the word pioneer mean?
What is a person who is among the first to settle a new area?
Why did many people travel west during the 1800s?
What is to find land, gold, start businesses, and find new opportunities?
Who were the Celestials?
What is the Chinese workers who helped build the Transcontinental Railroad?
What was the Homestead Act?
What is a law that gave free land to people who moved west and farmed it?
What is the name of the family featured in A Pioneer’s Sampler?
Who are the Robertson family?
What does it mean if something is described in proportions?
What is the size or amount of something compared to another thing?
How did most pioneers travel to the West?
What is by covered wagons on trails like the Oregon Trail?
Why did Chinese workers come to America during the 1800s?
What is to find work and better opportunities after not finding gold?
How much land could a settler get under the Homestead Act?
What is 160 acres?
Why was observing the weather important to the pioneer families?
What is they needed to know if storms or good weather were coming to protect their crops and animals?
What does it mean to plod across the prairie, like the pioneers did?
What is to walk slowly and heavily, usually because you are tired?
What was one problem pioneers faced when traveling long distances?
What is running out of supplies, worn-out shoes, or sickness from polluted water?
What dangerous task did Chinese workers perform while building the railroad?
What is blasting tunnels with explosives like nitroglycerin?
What kind of homes did many homesteaders build because there were few trees on the prairie?
What are sod houses (homes made from grass and dirt)?
What were some of the daily chores children had to do on the pioneer farm?
What are carrying water, feeding animals, planting crops, and helping with harvesting?
What is a homestead, like the ones settlers built in the West?
What is a piece of land where a family builds a home and farms the land to live?
Why did pioneers sometimes have to throw heavy items like furniture out of their wagons?
What is to make the wagons lighter so the oxen wouldn't get too tired?
How were the Chinese workers treated differently from the other workers?
What is they were paid less, faced discrimination, and were excluded from celebrations and photographs?
Name one major challenge settlers faced when trying to farm their land.
What is poor soil, harsh weather (like droughts), pests (like grasshoppers), or isolation?
What signs in nature did pioneers use to predict good or bad weather?
What are birds flying high, smoke rising quickly, cicadas singing for good weather, and dark clouds or halos around the sun for bad weather?
What does it mean if someone makes a sacrifice, like the Chinese workers did?
What is giving up something important to help or achieve something greater?
What dangers did pioneers face from nature while traveling west?
What are bad weather, river crossings, wild animals, and rough terrain?
Name two character traits the Chinese workers showed while building the railroad.
What are bravery and hard work? (Other acceptable answers: patience, strength, determination)
Why was living on the prairie difficult for new settlers?
What is because there were few trees for building houses, extreme weather, and loneliness?
Name two character traits the Robertson family needed to survive and explain why.
What are hardworking (because farm life required constant work) and observant (because they had to watch for signs of changing weather)?