Fifth Grade
Worksheets
Living With a Young Abe Lincoln
Take four markers such as sticks into an open space. Put one marker on the ground where you are standing. Take six long steps straight ahead. Put down a marker. Turn to your left and take five long steps. Put down a third marker. Turn left and take six long steps. Put down your last marker. Look back on the area you have marked off. This area will be approximately 18 feet by 16 feet. That is the size of the entire house in which Abraham Lincoln spent his first few years.
Abe was born on February 12, 1809, to Thomas and Nancy Hanks Lincoln. The little log cabin in which he was born was on the Sinking Spring Farm near the modern day town of Hodgenville, Kentucky. Thomas Lincoln was bound and determined to make a life on this land. His own father had lost his life trying to find a place to live in the Kentucky wilderness. He had been killed in an Indian raid when Thomas was just a young boy.
Thomas Lincoln was illiterate. That means that he could not read or write. The best Thomas could do was write his name for legal papers. He was a carpenter by trade. He also tended to the small farm on which the family lived. Nancy Lincoln had never gone to school. She was a wise woman, though. She knew the importance of education. She wanted her children to get the education their parents lacked.
