Constitution Activities
Teaching Constitution
If you find yourself teaching the Constitution this year, these US Constitution activities can help! Whether you are looking for Constitution Day activities for high school students or need inspiration for teaching the Constitution middle school, we’ve got you covered! The following list of ideas comes from our own teaching experiences and worked great in the secondary social studies classroom.
Constitution Activities Middle School
I-Civics: This might be my all-time favorite resource for a Constitution unit. There are several games that help students understand civic concepts; and the students genuinely enjoy the games. Our favorite game is include Win the White House and Do I Have a Right? Check out I-Civics here.
Scavenger Hunt: It may be fun to start your Constitution Unit with a scavenger hunt. Several versions are available for free online, or you could make your own. This can provide a competitive atmosphere for students to be interacting with the Constitution and identifying different parts of it.
Test Prep and Mini-Quizzes: Assuming you have to provide a high-stakes Constitution Test to your students at the end of the unit, I know that it is something my students felt nervous or anxious about. To help my students with ongoing studying and test preparation, I created mini-quizzes each day (or every few days) during the unit. These mini-quizzes were typically about five multiple-choice questions that reviewed what we learned in the class the previous day(s) and encourage students to study in smaller sections and not wait until right before the test to start studying. You could pull sample questions from this test, or create your own.
Celebrity Eligibility Activity: When you are covering the basic eligibility requirements of who can be the President, a Senator or Representative, it is fun to select several celebrities your students may be interested in and ask them to figure out what offices that person could hold.
School House Rock Video: The Preamble: If your students need to know or memorize the Preamble of the Constitution, the School House Rock version is well done and quite catchy!
Who’s Who in Congress Challenge: After you have taught students about Congress and the Legislative Branch using our Constitution Slideshow, consider this creative activity. To help students understand who makes up the current Congress, you can look up the average age, length of service, the number of women or people of color, etc. and have students guess this information. My students were surprised by the lack of diversity and old age of those in Congress, but doing this activity can be a great way to emphasize how important it is to have people step up to run for office and to include other perspectives.
A Constitution Word Wall can be a helpful way to reinforce Constitution vocabulary words!
Gerrymandering Challenge: Sketch out a sample state (or have students do their own) and label it with an equal number of Ds and Rs (for Democrats and Republicans). Make two copies for each student (perhaps on the front and back of a sheet). Then, provide an overview of how counties are formed and talk about gerrymandering. Students can then practice gerrymandering in a way that will allow the Democrats to have more seats on one page and Republicans on the other.
Vocabulary Activities: Vocabulary activities can be helpful tools to make learning vocabulary fun, and these Constitution Vocabulary Activities for Google Drive are no exception! We love using Google Forms with our students because they are self-grading, and websites like Quizlet are always a meaningful option. This resource features a word sort/Semantic Map, a matching challenge with synonyms and antonyms, vocabulary bingo, several Google Forms, a Frayer Model vocabulary chart, and more!
You can learn more about some helpful vocabulary activities and vocabulary teaching ideas in this blog post.
Debates and/or Mock Elections: Debates and mock elections can be great ways to get students involved in Constitutional issues, especially for older students. Perhaps students can debate about issues pertaining to the amendments or evaluate Supreme Court Cases. Also, to illustrate and explain how the election system works, you can have several students ”run for office” and participate in an election.
Constitutional Convention: While this would require more planning, you might consider hosting a Constitutional Convention. Assign roles to your students and have them debate and discuss some of the key parts of the Constitution or differences between the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. For this, I recommend using teachingamericanhistory.org, or specifically go here.
Constitution Lesson Plans
If you liked these Constitution activities, you will love our Constitution bundle! This United States Constitution bundle is designed to simplify your US Constitution unit and give you all of the resources you need to be successful. All files are 100% editable, so you can add any additional information that your state or district requires or change things as you wish. We have also added some Google Drive files for your convenience! Check out this epic resource here.
Constitution Day Online Activities
Do you need a digital activity to use for Constitution Day only? If so, you might like this Constitution Day Amendment Analysis Activity! This Constitution Day Activity will challenge your students and help them make connections between the amendments in the Bill of Rights and current events. This no-prep activity consists of a Google Slideshow with a slide for each of the 10 amendments in the Bill of Rights.
Are you looking for some new teaching ideas to engage your students in your social studies class? If so, you’ll love our FREE guide: 5 Creative Projects to Ignite Student Engagement in Your Social Studies Class. These activities have both printable and digital options and can work for any social studies subject!
