Day 2

Content for Study

The Constitution and amendments
NCSS Theme
Power, Authority, and Governance
Rationale
Students need to be able to understand and interpret the document that governs our country as well as
how and why it has been changed throughout the span of its existence.
Unit Goals
Students will describe what the Constitution is, the amending process, and what some of the
amendments are that have been made already.
Pre-assessment
Students will use Quizlet live. Students are broken into teams where they must compete to answer
questions on quizlet.com about constitution and what freedoms it protects.
Post-assessment
Students will create a Bio-project related to a key founding father. Options are George Washington,
James Madison, Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, George Mason, and Elbridge Gerry. Students
will sign up for their person the 1st day of the Unit. Students will read a biography of their person and do
the following tasks:
 Create a Bio-cube of their founding father
 Create a Bio-poem
 Create a Bottle person
In addition, students will choose two of the following to also include
 Create a timeline of important event that occurred in your person’s life time.
 Create a diary or Journal for your person with a minimum of 4 entries. Each entry should be at
least four paragraphs long.
 Create an obituary, birth certificate, and death certificate for your person.
On the last day, students will share their Bio-projects in groups. (The groups will be made so that no one
at a group should have the same person)
Learning Standards
SS.5.C.1.2: Define a constitution, and discuss its purposes.
SS.5.A.5.10: Examine the significance of the Constitution including its key political concepts, origins of
those concepts, and their role in American democracy
SS.5.C.3.1: Describe the organizational structure (legislative, executive, judicial branches) and powers of
the federal government as defined in Articles I, II, and III of the U.S. Constitution.
SS.5.A.1.1: Use primary and secondary sources to understand history.
SS.5.C.3.6: Examine the foundations of the United States legal system by recognizing the role of the
courts in interpreting law and settling conflicts.
LAFS.5.RI.2.4: Determine the meaning of general academic and domain-specific words and phrases in a
text relevant to a grade 5 topic or subject area.
LAFS.5.RI.3.7: Draw on information from multiple print or digital sources, demonstrating the ability to
locate an answer to a question quickly or to solve a problem efficiently.
Objectives
Students will be able to describe the three branches of government and what powers are granted to
them, based on the Constitution.
Materials
Frayer Model worksheets
Constitution Translated for Kids by Cathy Davis (also in Spanish)
https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government (also in Spanish)
Procedures
Students will reread Articles 1, 2, and 3 in their groups and create Frayer models for each branch of the
government in the Social Studies Notebook. Students will also read and use information from the
branches of government article
The teacher will pull ESE/ESOL students to a separate group and work with them. The teacher will
scaffold the language of Articles 1-3 for ESOL students and give sentence frames for completing the
Frayer model. ESOL and ESE students will be able to use notes created on Day one that explains each
article.
Formal Assessment
The teacher will look over the Frayer models to insure students have filled them out correctly and
address any common mistakes the next day.
Resources
Branches of Government. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.usa.gov/branches-of-government