Standard 3: Structure and Functions of Government

This is lesson #3 in the text unit series for We the Kids by David Catrow. In this lesson, students will be introduced to Florida’s Constitution focusing on the Preamble. Students will collaborate in a whole group setting to complete a graphic organizer to compare and contrast the Preamble from both Constitutions. Students will use the graphic organizer created as a class to write their own essay on how the Preambles are similar and different.

This unit will help students develop the meaning of the Preamble as part of the Constitution of the United States and its direct effect on their daily lives. Students will engage in various activities such as debating parts of the Preamble and complete a play interpreting patriotism. Throughout the unit students will have to identify and interpret vocabulary, analyze the provided text, and demonstrate an understanding of the Preamble by providing relevant details. The teacher’s role in this unit will be to support their students' knowledge of the Preamble by facilitating research, reviewing student writing, and work.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson #5 in the text unit series for We the Kids by David Catrow. In small groups, students will use the KWL chart that has been filled in throughout the unit to support them in identifying the central idea and relevant details from the Preamble of the United States Constitution. Small groups will then share their retelling through a presentation (act out, posterboard, etc.)

This unit will help students develop the meaning of the Preamble as part of the Constitution of the United States and its direct effect on their daily lives. Students will engage in various activities such as debating parts of the Preamble and complete a play interpreting patriotism. Throughout the unit students will have to identify and interpret vocabulary, analyze the provided text, and demonstrate an understanding of the Preamble by providing relevant details. The teacher’s role in this unit will be to support their students' knowledge of the Preamble by facilitating research, reviewing student writing, and work.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson #1 in the text unit series for We the Kids by David Catrow. In this lesson, students will demonstrate their background knowledge on the Constitution of the United States, including the Preamble, by completing the sentence “We the People. . .” They will create a KWL chart that will be used throughout the unit to keep track of information learned. They will listen to first page of the text read aloud to them to begin to learn about the Preamble.

This unit will help students gain an understanding of the preamble and its direct effect on their daily lives. Students will engage in various activities such as debating parts of the preamble and complete a play interpreting patriotism. Throughout the unit students will have to identify and interpret vocabulary, analyze the provided text, and demonstrate an understanding of the Preamble by providing relevant details. The teacher’s role in this unit will be to support their students' understanding of the Preamble by facilitating research and reviewing student writing.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

This is lesson #4 in the text unit series for “We the Kids,” by David Catrow. Students will identify and interpret academic vocabulary in the text. They will match vocabulary words to pictures to show the meaning of the words. Students will then write a sentence to demonstrate their comprehension of the meaning of each word.

This unit will help second grade students develop the meaning of the Preamble as part of the Constitution of the United States and its direct effect on their daily lives. Students will engage in various activities such as debating parts of the Preamble and complete a play interpreting patriotism. Throughout the unit, students will have to identify and interpret vocabulary, analyze the provided text, and demonstrate an understanding of the Preamble by providing relevant details. The teacher’s role in this unit will be to support their students' knowledge of the Preamble by facilitating research, reviewing student writing, and work.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

This lesson can be used with the text The Congress of the United States, by Christine Taylor-Butler.

Students will identify how the United States government is founded on the principals of a constitutional republic.

This resource uses a book that is on the Florida Department of Education's reading list. This book is not provided with this resource.

Type: Lesson Plan

In this lesson plan, students will understand that the U.S. Constitution is the supreme law of the land and that the U.S. has a written constitution.

Type: Lesson Plan

Discover how to use context clues and text features to learn new vocabulary while studying why the U.S. Supreme Court is a symbol that represents the United States with this interactive tutorial.

This is part 4 in a six-part series. Click below to open the other tutorials in this series.

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5
• Part 6

Type: Original Student Tutorial

This Grade 2 Civics Family Guide provides some ideas and activities to support civics education when at home, out and about, and in the community. The activities provided align to the civics learning benchmarks within Standard 3 at this grade level.

Type: Teaching Idea