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4th grade · Social Studies · Unit 9 of 12

Free States & Slave States

New states from 1812 to 1860

What your child practices

Sorting the states admitted between 1812 and 1860 into free and slave states, and the growing nation's trails and technology.

Alabama Course of Study content standard: 4.11 · states admitted between 1812 and 1860 as free or slave states, and factors in US expansion before the Civil War

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Free states did not allow slavery. Slave states did.
  2. From 1812 to 1860, Congress tried to keep the number of free and slave states balanced.
  3. Southern states like Mississippi and Florida joined as slave states. Northern ones like Indiana and Michigan joined as free states.

Example: Alabama joined in 1819. Was it a free state or a slave state? Alabama is in the South. Cotton plantations there used enslaved workers. Answer: a slave state

Free States & Slave States in Alabama

In the Alabama Course of Study, this is unit 9 of 12 in 4th grade Social Studies, after Cotton, Slavery & Removal and before Alabama & the Civil War.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alabama State Department of Education (ALSDE)

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    Michigan joined the United States in 1837. Did it join as a free state or a slave state?

    • a free state
    • a slave state

  2. Question 2

    Sort these states, admitted between 1812 and 1860, into free states and slave states.

    Sort into: 🗽 Free state · ⛓️ Slave state

    • 🏛️Indiana (1816)
    • 🏛️Alabama (1819)
    • 🏛️Florida (1845)
    • 🏛️Iowa (1846)

  3. Question 3

    The telegraph, invented by Samuel Morse in the 1840s, let people…

    • send messages over wires in minutes
    • travel by car
    • take photos from space
    • fly across the ocean

  4. Question 4

    Alabama joined the United States in 1819. Did it join as a free state or a slave state?

    • a free state
    • a slave state

  5. Question 5

    The Gold Rush of 1849 drew thousands of people…

    • to the Arctic
    • to Alabama's coal mines
    • to Europe
    • west, hoping to get rich

  6. Question 6

    A steam locomotive is a…

    • car
    • sailing ship
    • train engine powered by steam
    • airplane

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