Shownotes
The Bill of Rights is an important concept that needs to be taught in most U.S. history classes. But rather than it being a dull event, it can actually be engaging (and low prep) for your upper elementary learners!
Episode Highlights
- what the Bill of Rights is
- why is it important to teach about the Bill of Rights
- a brief description of each of the 10 Amendments
- some Bill of Rights fun facts
- 3 activities to implement for upper elementary (grade 3-6)
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Transcripts
Kirsten 0:00
This is the social studies teacher podcast, a show for busy elementary teachers looking for fun and engaging ways to easily add social studies into their classroom schedule without feeling overwhelmed or pressed for time. I'm curious to know if you southern teach an educator and mom who is passionate about all things social studies, I love sharing ideas and strategies that are low prep and easy to implement. So let's dive in together.
Hello, guys, welcome to another episode of the social studies teacher podcast, we're going to talk about three activities to teach regarding the Bill of Rights. So if this is something that you're doing in the next month or so you're talking about the Constitution and the first 10 amendments, then this episode is for you.
Alright, let's talk about what the Bill of Rights is why it's important, some little fun facts about the Bill of Rights and also some activities that you can utilize to teach about the Bill of Rights. The Bill of Rights is the first 10 amendments to the US Constitution. These amendments are guaranteeing essential rights and civil liberties to American citizens such as the right to free speech, and also reserving rights to the people and to the states. This was drafted separately as an amendment after the seven articles from the Constitution was written. But ever since the first 10 amendments were ratified, the Bill of Rights has also been an important part of the Constitution.
It's important that the bill of rights be taught because it shows students how these amendments help protect freedoms and citizens from government interference in our everyday life. These are just some examples of it's just basically having those basic liberties that people believed in or at least some people believed in. There were certain groups of people who did not have the same freedoms and liberties. But that's a whole other story that we're not going to get into today. But the whole concept of the Bill of Rights as it is today, you want students to understand of how it is protecting any American citizen, however old you are in the United States for basic rights related to how the government is in our daily lives.
Alright, let's talk about each of the 10 amendments and what Each amendment means
the First Amendment is the freedom of speech, religion and the press. This means you can say what you want, practice your religion and express your opinions freely without government interference.
The second amendment is the right to bear arms. This means you have the right to own and carry firearms for self defense and other lawful purposes like hunting.
The third amendment is the protection from quartering of troops. This means the government cannot force you to house and feed soldiers in your home during peacetime without your consent. This was based off of in the American or before the American Revolution, the war, they were basically forced to house British soldiers. And that was something that they decided to add to the Constitution.
The fourth amendment is protection from unreasonable searches and seizures. This means the government cannot search your property or take your things without a warrant. And a good reason.
The Fifth Amendment is all about the protection of rights to life, liberty and property. This means you can't be deprived of your life, your liberty and your property without a fair process. And you do not have to testify against yourself in a criminal case. So you can plead the fifth and decide to remain silent since anything that you say, can and will be used against you. So that's usually where that comes from.
The Sixth Amendment is the right to a fair trial. This means you have the right to a speedy and public trial to know the charges against you to have a lawyer and also to question witnesses.
The Seventh Amendment is all about the right to a trial by a jury. This means you can have a jury decide the outcome of certain civil cases involving disputes over money or property, and I think the minimum amount is $20.
The Eighth Amendment is all about protection from cruel and unusual punishment. This means punishments can't be overly harsh or torturous, and bail amounts must be fair and not excessively high.
The Ninth Amendment is related to rights retained by the people. This is related to how you can have other rights not specifically listed in the Constitution and those rights should still be protected.
The 10th amendment is powers reserved to the States. This means that any powers not given to the federal government are reserved for the States or the people, which allows for state autonomy in specific matters.
:All right, I'm going to share with you three bill of rights activities that you can utilize with your students.
The first one is called take a stand. This is an activity that is suggested for grades four through five. Here's how it works before students are introduced to the Bill of Rights have them share their opinion on statements that are related to the Bill of Rights. This could be something like, of course, not actually quoting the Bill of Rights word for word but aligned to it. So for example, a statement can be people should be allowed to say whatever they want, regardless of whether their opinion might hurt others. Another thing you could say is if someone commits a terrible crime, they deserve to go to prison for the rest of their life. And a third example could be that people who protests have the right to express their feelings in any way they like. So those are a few examples. You want students to share or write down their opinion, give each student about 10 to 20. Three minutes to independently write their opinion and conduct a whole group discussion, you could project a slide show with the statements and have students move from one side to another side for more engagement. So for example, if they agree students can go to the back of the room, if they disagree, students can go to the front of the room, and then give students time to share their opinion if they would like to. This needs to be moderated by you in a way where students are respectfully listening to and responding to opinions that may be different. So this is you know, you want to guide students, but also give them that chance to share their opinions, but you would have to moderate it. So that's why it's adjusted for possibly fourth, fifth or sixth grade
conduct a Bill of Rights webquest, we talked about web quests in an earlier episode, I highly recommend you check out episode 18 about web quests, and what it is and more details about that. But with this, you can select a website source provided to read about the Bill of Rights, and use a recording sheet to write each of the first 10 amendments in their own words. So find a source that has all 10 amendments, kid friendly links where students can understand the language and they're not like what does this word even mean? Just something super easy and friendly to use, and just have them rewrite each of the first 10 amendments. In their own words, students can work on this activity independently or in partners. And as a whole group, you can discuss each of the 10 amendments just to kind of reflect back on if what they wrote down in their own words matches what it actually means.
The third suggestion would be to have students write a Bill of Rights blog post, have students select one of the rights in the first 10 amendments to support? Students can write a blog post containing the definition of the right, any history of the right and why it was put in the Bill of Rights, if there's that information available, current problems with this right? And what different groups are doing to make sure this right continues to be defended. So there's a lot of different ways you could answer it depending on the amendment that they choose. But you would want to have them write that down the answers to those questions and prompts and allow them to also illustrate and share their blog post to the class. Those are all really great ways to teach and have students learn about the Bill of Rights.
To end off this episode, I wanted to share with you just more ways you can teach about the Constitution in general, in the Bill of Rights. The first thing I wanted to mention is that all three activities that I talked about, I have lesson plans and activities for students that you can basically print and copy and assign. And I also have a slideshow of the statements that you can project and have students answer there's about nine or 10 of them. But this is all in my membership, the Smart and Simple Social Studies membership. So if you're interested in not only the Bill of Rights, but so so much more about social studies, you should check out that waitlist at Smart and Simple Social studies.com. Additionally, I wanted to share with you the Constitution WebQuest I do have up in my Teachers Pay teacher's store. But if you're a member of the membership, you get that also included in the membership, so you don't have to go and do the Constitution WebQuest it's all there in that membership. So that's why I highly suggest joining the waitlist because I will be opening it very very soon. So I always want people to stay in the know, just in case. But either way, I will link that WebQuest for the Constitution because there's an activity and extra activity in there that includes the Bill of Rights with a kid friendly link. So that's something if you're ever interested in you can always add that in.
Alright, well that is the end of this episode. Hopefully, you learned a little bit about the Bill of Rights and also got some ideas on how you can teach it to your students. I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day. Thanks for listening to the social studies teacher podcast. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, hit that subscribe button and leave a review. I would love to hear your thoughts. You can also find me on Instagram at the southern teach. I can't wait for you to join me in the next episode for more teacher tips and strategies.
