This lesson allows students to analyze the Constitution and ask questions about how the Constitution lays out the President's powers.

This lesson allows students to analyze the Constitution and ask questions about how the Constitution lays out the President's powers.

This video gives a quick intro into the details and events surrounding the constitutional convention.

Use this lesson with The Constitutional Convention Narrative and after students have done The Articles of Confederation, 1781 Primary Source activity.

This lesson contains various activites that can be used while teaching about the Constitutional Convention. Some have students compare similiarities/differences between the Convention members. Others deal with comparing the Articles of Confederacy to the Constitution, objections to the Constitution, or Madison's description of 'Federalism.'

The Constitutional Convention was called in May of 1787 to make revisions to the Articles of Confederation. George Washington was immediately named the convention's president. The articles had been shown since their adoption to be very weak.

This document is a glossary of words, phrases, and concepts used in the United States Constitution. Note that some words are defined only as they apply to the Constitution itself. The page does have advertisements as well, so it is best used as a teacher resource.

Constitutional law is a body of law based on a ratified constitution or similar formative charter dealing with the fundamental principles by which a government exercises its authority. These principles typically define the roles and powers of the various branches of the government and the basic rights of the people.

This resource includes a reading and discussion questions about the U.S. Constitution and slavery. Access to this resource requires a free educator login.

In this activity students will analyze documents that span the course of American history to determine their connection to the U.S. Constitution. Students will then make connections between the primary sources they have examined and sections of the Constitution, and determine the big idea(s) found in the Constitution exemplified by each.

In this activity students will connect primary sources with specific sections of the Constitution.

This webpage explains the basics of the U.S. Constitution at a lower elementary level. It includes the following sections: Basics, History, Bill of Rights, Making Changes, How It All Works. The page does have advertisements as well, so it is best used as a teacher resource.

This webpage explains the basics of the U.S. Constitution at an upper elementary and middle school level. It includes the following sections: Basics, History, Amendments, Slavery, Women, Bill of Rights, How it all Works. The page does have advertisements as well, so it is best used as a teacher resource.

This webpage explains the basics of the U.S. Constitution at an upper elementary and middle school level. It includes the following sections: Basics, History, Amendments, Slavery, Women, Bill of Rights, How it all Works. The page does have advertisements as well, so it is best used as a teacher resource.

The Constitution acted like a colossal merger, uniting a group of states with different interests, laws, and cultures. Under Americaâ"s first national government, the Articles of Confederation, the states acted together only for specific purposes. The Constitution united its citizens as members of a whole, vesting the power of the union in the people. Without it, the American Experiment might have ended as quickly as it had begun.

The Constitution was written in the summer of 1787 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, by delegates from 12 states, in order to replace the Articles of Confederation with a new form of government. It created a federal system with a national government composed of 3 separated powers, and included both reserved and concurrent powers of states. The president of the Constitutional Convention, the body that framed the new government, was George Washington, though James Madison is known as the "Father of the Constitution" because of his great contributions to the formation of the new government. Gouverneur Morris wrote the Constitutionâ"s final language. The Constitution was a compact – though Federalists and Anti-Federalists disagreed over whether the states or the people were the agents of the compact.

This lesson plan focuses on the essential question: How does philosophy affect the way a judge reads the Constitution and what is the effect of that? Teachers will use the Annenberg Classroom video âA Conversation on the Constitution: Judicial Interpretationâ in which Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, a strict constructionist, and Stephen Breyer, an evolutionist, debate how the Constitution should be interpreted.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. and a group of students discuss the U.S. Supreme Court: its history and evolution; how the justices select, hear and decide cases; and the role of an independent judiciary and other issues crucial to a healthy democracy today.