Constitution Day - Teaching Lower Elementary Students About the Constitution Using Technology

Each fall as school resumes, we immediately find ourselves having to teach about the Constitution in order to celebrate Constitution Day. The idea of celebrating a document is a bit difficult for lower elementary students.

So, how can we help younger children understand the impact of the Constitution and also celebrate the day?

I begin by talking about when the pilgrims came to America and why. We discuss becoming a country and having George Washington as our first president. These are concepts that they may have heard about before. Next I address the idea of starting school and how rules are important to keep the school flowing with ease. Then I suggest that a new country would have to have rules also, to keep the peace. With older students (grades 3 and up, I read "The U.S. Constitution" by Norman Pearl) which gives a very basic outline of the Constitution.

With the kindergarten through second graders, I begin by having the younger students recite the Pledge of Allegiance. Then I ask if there are any words in that Pledge that they don't understand? Maybe words like pledge, allegiance, justice, liberty, indivisible? I read "I Pledge Allegiance" by Bill Martin Jr. This book does a great job defining the pledge and I even skip some of the small print.

Finally, I show the children how to draw a flag using a drawing program on the computer. I use KidPix. We look at a flag to find out how many stripes they are and what colors are at the top and bottom of the flag. We use the rectangle tool to draw the red stripes (as the line tool isn't quite thick enough.) We add a blue rectangle in the upper left-hand corner. We stamp on 50 stars, or white dots.

In kindergarten, we type our name on the flag. In first grade we write "I am proud to be an American" and our name. In second grade we add one reason why we are proud to be an American. By third and fourth grades we have multiple reasons as to why we are proud to be an Americans.

After printing, the banners with the color, I staple each a piece of red or blue construction paper and sends them back to class for a bulletin board display will be for the month of September!

What a great way to start the year! Constitution Day is not a painful experience to celebrate with young people. More painful is when I give the school to sing the rock version of the preamble! (Also make sure if you need another lesson to celebrate the ConstitutionDay!)

Play sing the song together and see the flags of the class did!