More Constitution Resources

from an email from an old "friend"

Constitution Day Lesson Plans

National Constitution Day is coming up (September 17th). It can be challenging to come up with something for Constitution Day. For one thing, it kind of sneaks up on you right at the beginning of the school year when you are still getting classroom routines under way. This is why I am bringing it up a bit early here, so you have time to get prepared. For another, lesson plans on the constitution tend to be (quite properly) serious lengthy things for older students, not the equivalent of making paper models of the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria for Columbus Day. All educational institutions receiving federal funds are required to teach lessons on the constitution on National Constitution Day (Pub L 108-447), but that doesn't mean that your classroom will actually be studying the constitution at that time, or that it would fit into your curriculum to do so. Accordingly, I'm going to offer you some links to brief lessons that you can jigsaw in on the 17th, and hark back to when it is appropriate. Here is EdHelper's collection of Constitution Day printables,including a coloring page, word search, reading passages, reader's theater, and more. Here is a collection of PDF lessons and audio files from the Center for Civic Education. These range from a story about the value of rules for kindergarteners to a critical thinking lesson for high school seniors. Here is a collection of PDF lessons and online stuff designed for Constitution Day. Get your technology requirements crossed off with the "online module," or check out this page for ideas on using a "constitution cube" with diverse learning modalities. For middle school and up. Here is a page with links to the text of the constitution and printable basics for K-12. This site has coloring pages, math word problems about the Electoral College, and some ideas for ways to analyze the constitution for interesting language points, among many other things. Here is NARA's Constitution Day collection, including a simulation and a number of interesting activities to do with documents. Read a book! We the Kids: The Preamble to the Constitution of the United States by David Catrow is an excellent choice, probably the best introduction to the constitution for young children. Read the book aloud along with a discussion about rules and the usefulness of having someone in charge or having agreements about behavior. This is a great time to review the classroom rules. Shh! We're Writing the Constitution is as terrific as Jean Fritz's books always are. This book is comfortable for upper elementary, and a good read-aloud for grade 3. Peter Spier's We, the People is a lovely wordless book full of detail. We like to put this book in a center for free exploration by the youngest students, and to ask older kids to write text for each page. If you can work a thorough study of the constitution into your September lesson plans, Understanding the U.S. Constitution Book for Grades 5-8 + by Carson Dellosa from Carson- Dellosa is a good one to use. It has reading passages and comprehension questions, writing assignments, and a test, thus limiting your prep time and giving your class opportunities to practice reading, writing, and test-taking skills. TCR's U.S. Constitution Thematic Unit is another excellent choice for elementary school classrooms. Here is a sample from the book in PDF format. If you don't already have a copy, you might like poster of the constitution for your classroom. Finally, here are the words to Schoolhouse Rock's "I'm Just a Bill," because that is one of the most frequent requests for Constitution Day. Dave Frishberg certainly had a hit on his hands with that one. Here is the whole script, and a link to a YouTube video of it. Here is a lesson plan to use with it. These are awesome resources from a blogger, I used to follow when I was at a different School. WOW!

Constitution Resources from Thinkfinity

Constitution Day is September 17, 2010, and schools across the nation are preparing activities in anticipation of the important day. To help you prepare, Thinkfinity offers lesson plans, activities, educational games and so much more. You will find lessons that cover the Constitutional Convention, the First Amendment and even Constitution Costs. You can even include an interactive, such as Charting the Constitution. These are just a few of the many educational resources available on Thinkfinity about Constitution Day.

Great Resource on a Great Topic from a Great Company!
~~Enjoy!
~~GB

Teaching the Consititution this Month?

I pushed around some other posts to get this website information to you right away to help you prepare for teaching the Constitution.

This came from http://www.eschoolnews.com. This is a great electronic resource to subscribe to.

Our Courts' teaches civics lessons via online games

http://www.ourcourts.org

A free computer game for teenagers created with the help of

former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor has made its online debut. "Supreme Decision," the first of several planned web-based games, went online in August as part of a project called Our Courts. In it, students can play a Supreme Court law clerk helping a justice with a tie-breaking vote over a First Amendment case. Backed by the Sandra Day O'Connor College of Law at Arizona State

University and Georgetown University, the Our Courts project is designed to teach middle school students about the Constitution and the courts. O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the Supreme Court, has said more people can name an "American Idol" judge than the three branches of government. Besides teaching about civics, she hopes the Our Courts project will help students learn how to analyze problems and develop arguments. In "Supreme Decision," students play a law clerk and must help fictional Justice Irene Waters write the majority opinion on whether a school can ban students from wearing music band T-shirts. Another game, called "Do I Have a Right," will be released soon. In that game, students will play the director of a constitutional law firm who must decide which amendment resolves a problem posed by a client.