Worksheets and No Prep Teaching Resources Reading Comprehension Worksheets The United States Grows (1865-1900)

Growing Wheat on the Great Plains The United States Grows (1865-1900)

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Growing Wheat on the Great Plains
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Reading Level

	edHelper's suggested reading level:	grades 5 to 7
	Flesch-Kincaid grade level:	5.19

Vocabulary

	challenging words:		reaper, immigrate, resistant, breadbasket, provided, brittle, bushels, semi, harvest, freedom, earth, date, however, early, appear, religious
	content words:		Native Americans, Russian Mennonites, American Midwest, Great Plains, Turkey Red Wheat, Red Wheat, In Kansas

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Growing Wheat on the Great Plains By Sharon Fabian

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¹     Wheat farmers in Kansas harvest hundreds of millions of bushels of wheat each year. One huge combine can harvest 1,000 bushels in just one hour. That's enough to bake 73,000 loaves of bread! The wheat is stored in giant grain elevators, nicknamed prairie skyscrapers, and then shipped out by railroad or semi truck.
 
²     It wasn't always like that. The Native Americans didn't grow wheat. They grew corn. The early settlers tried to grow wheat sometimes, mostly as an experiment, but with little success. The prairie soil was too hard. There wasn't enough rain. High winds and dust storms made wheat farming even more difficult.
 
³     Then, in the early 1870s, Russian Mennonites began to immigrate to the American Midwest. The Mennonites were a religious group who came to America for religious freedom and freedom to live the way they wanted. Back in Russia, they had lived on the steppes, flat land similar to the Great Plains. There, they had grown winter wheat. When they came to America, each family brought a trunk full of wheat seeds with them. This winter wheat had the colorful name of Turkey Red Wheat.

Paragraphs 4 to 9:
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The United States Grows
(1865-1900)

The United States Grows (1865-1900)

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United States

United States

American Government         Black History and Blacks in U.S. History         Children in History         Government Careers         Hispanic Heritage         How Can I Help?

Immigration         National Parks and Monuments         Native Americans         Presidents of the United States         Women's History

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United States History

A Nation Divided (1840-1861)         A New Nation (1776-1830)         After the Civil War (1865-1870)         American Revolution         Cold War (1947-1991)         Colonial America (1492-1776)         Lewis and Clark (1804-1806)         Pearl Harbor         Spanish American War (1898)         The 1890's         The 1900's         The 1910's         The 1920's         The 1930's

The 1940's         The 1950's         The 1960's         The 1970's         The 1980's         The 1990's         The 2000's         The Civil War (1861-1865)         The Great Depression (1929-1945)         The United States Grows (1865-1900)         The War of 1812         Wild, Wild West         World War I (1914-1918)         World War II

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50 States

Fifty States Theme Unit

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