Constitution Week Ideas

As we all know, we never really take a break from teaching.  We are always thinking about our kiddos and new exciting ways to impart knowledge.  While on vacation in Boston this summer, I got very excited about all the history that makes this city so special.  I knew I had to buy something to take back to my class.  I decided to buy a "Make Your Own Constitution" kit.  It was the cutest thing.  It had parchment paper, a quill, an ink well, and "ink".  I also bought a copy of the our country's constitution.  I introduced the topic by presenting my copy of the constitution.  In an attempt to encourage some higher level thinking, I told my second graders that this was indeed the real constitution.  The conversation that ensued was comical, enlightening, and fun.  We finally determined that it could not be the real constitution, but they still thought it was a very cool copy.   Then I broke out the kit.  They were so excited you would have sworn I just told them I was giving them a million dollars...each.  We studied the constitution.  We took a day and just talked about the preamble.  We listened to and sang the School House Rock version too.  We took another day to study the articles and the signatures. I used the folllowing websites to help us:  http://www.usconstitution.net/constkidsK.html and http://www.scholastic.com/browse/collection.jsp?id=391 .

By the third day we were ready to talk about how the constitution is a living document and always changing.  Finally, we were ready to write our class constitution and (hopefully) understand what it means.  They were so exited to sign their document using the quill and ink well.  It seemed so authentic to them.  We now have a meaningful document to live and work by!