Do You Know Your Rights?

As part of our 5th grade Social Studies curriculum we have to dig into the Bill of Rights and most of the amendments. I'm not sure about you, but as an adult I still have problems completely understanding all that the amendments in tell let alone explaining them on a 5th grade level...and have them comprehend them, remember them, and apply them to past and present events! It's A LOT!

So we spent a week or so going over them, discussing them, and trying to apply them. They were still struggling. So I made this booklet template for them to use. It gives each amendment in "kid" terms. They then must use the final page with examples, they must find the example that matches and glue it under the correct amendment. Finally they got to draw examples of the amendments. This seemed to help a little more. But according to our local county benchmarks my class is still struggling with them, not that I blame them...this is hard stuff!

My next plan of attack is to spend a week on each amendment. This is not going to be my primary lesson plan for the week but instead will be something we talk about every day for about five minutes, maybe give a little worksheet or quiz on each one each week. With luck we will have these suckers memorized, understood, and be able to apply them by the CRCT.

So here are a few pictures of the booklets my kids made. I tweaked a few things and the examples so make it a little more applicable. You can buy the entire booklet in my TpT or Teacher's Notebook store here!

We cut the pages out and made the booklet with construction paper. You could also cut the pages out and glue them into your notebooks to use them along with interactive notes!