Understanding the Constitution
Check out the all-inclusive Understanding The Constitution & Declaration of Independence Bundle!
The U.S. Constitution is the cornerstone of America’s laws and has a great deal of influence on our daily lives, but how much do your kids know and understand about this important document?
Understanding The Constitution is a Notebook Companion™ to The Interactive Constitution (sold separately). This publisher-approved Notebook Companion™ is the perfect tool to help your students truly understand the importance of the Constitution.
What Students Will Learn
Understanding The Constitution is broken into 8 sections that can be completed at whatever pace works for your family. It’s open-and-go and requires no prep work.
Understanding The Constitution covers the following topics:
- What is the Constitution?
- Creating the Constitution
- The Preamble
- The Legislative Branch
- The Executive Branch
- The Judicial Branch
- Amending the Constitution
- The Bill of Rights
Each lesson includes:
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- Open-ended notebooking questions that gauge comprehension
- Room to draw people or objects related to the lesson or what the student learned about the Constitution and what it means to them
- Two or more optional writing prompts that challenge students to write short pieces of fiction or nonfiction in response
- Two or more optional research projects for older students that challenge them to dig deeper into various related topics through independent research
Most lessons also include vocabulary work for key words shared throughout the text. A bonus glossary project is also included for students to record the vocabulary words featured in the study.
This publisher-approved Notebook Companion™ is the perfect tool to help your students truly understand the importance of the U.S. Constitution.
The Interactive Constitution
Do you want to teach your students about the United States Constitution in a fun way that will help them actually remember the facts?
The Interactive Constitution by Bushel and Peck Books has gorgeous interactive features like color-changing words, flaps, wheels, and a special vocabulary decoder. This interactive book will help kids understand about different types of government, checks and balances, the bill of rights, and more. There’s never been a better way to discover the world-changing importance of this historical document.
The Interactive Constitution by Bushel & Peck Books makes it fun and easy to understand, and our Notebook Companion™ guides students as they read the book. Our open-ended narration questions encourage them to think about what they have read, and plenty of opportunities to sketch in response to the lessons are provided.
The Interactive Constitution includes engaging hands-on features such as a Vocab Decoder, fold-outs, sliders, and more.
The Interactive Constitution is a required book for our Notebook Companion™ and sold separately. Created with publisher approval, our Notebook Companion™ follows along with the book so you can get the most out of it.
“The Interactive Constitution by David and Stephanie Miles works great as a standalone book for learning about our Constitution, the amendments, and how our government works. However, homeschooling parents who want to use it as part of their curriculum will be glad to know there is an Understanding the Constitution Notebook Companion™ created specifically for The Interactive Constitution that provides what’s missing to make it into a course for ages eight through thirteen.” — Cathy Duffy (read full review)
Bonus Freebie
The U.S. Presidents Coloring Notebook includes 45 coloring pages and 45 corresponding notebooking pages, each featuring a President of the United States. The notebooking pages give students a chance to record what they have learned about the individual or write questions they have and what they’d like to learn about the nation’s leaders.
Individuals included are:
- George Washington
- John Adams
- Thomas Jefferson
- James Madison
- James Monroe
- John Quincy Adams
- Andrew Jackson
- Martin Van Buren
- William H. Harrison
- John Tyler
- James K. Polk
- Zachary Taylor
- Millard Fillmore
- Franklin Pierce
- James Buchanan
- Abraham Lincoln
- Andrew Johnson
- Ulysses S. Grant
- Rutherford B. Hayes
- James A. Garfield
- Chester A. Arthur
- Grover Cleveland
- Benjamin Harrison
- William McKinley
- Theodore Roosevelt
- William H. Taft
- Woodrow Wilson
- Warren G. Harding
- Calvin Coolidge
- Herbert Hoover
- Franklin D. Roosevelt
- Harry S. Truman
- Dwight D. Eisenhower
- John F. Kennedy
- Lyndon B. Johnson
- Richard M. Nixon
- Gerald R. Ford
- Jimmy Carter
- Ronald Reagan
- George H.W. Bush
- Bill Clinton
- George W. Bush
- Barack Obama
- Donald J. Trump
- Joe Biden
NOEMI ROSADO –
Highly recommended. It’s companion book is a great pair. Our children are really learning about the US Consitution in a fun and interesting way.
Holly Carter –
There are such great reviews for this product! This companion notebook is an awesome tool for getting what your child has learned in the Interactive Constitution book down on paper in and their own words. The Interactive Constitution is such fun book to learn about the process, authors, and their intentions when creating the Constitution. The Notebooking companion helps your child to process what they’ve read and explain what it means. We love this product and have recommended it many times to those around us and now we are recommending it to you!
Denise Rodriguez –
Highly recommend this Notebook Companion and The Interactive Constitution book! The interactive book is full of lift the flaps, wheels, and other movable pieces. My daughter said she felt like she was reading a fun book and not a book for school work. The Notebook Companion has been a great guide for her to pause and break down the information. The questions follow right along and break the book down into 8 sections. The Notebook Companion has pages with questions to fill out, followed by a picture to draw, then vocabulary to define, and bonus projects. The end of the Notebook Companion has addt’l blank pages to print and a Glossary to fill out.
My daughter used her own notebook instead of printing the pages. She answered the Vocabulary section first then answered the questions. I love that the Notebook Companion gives her the flexibility to learn the way she would like!
As a bonus we received The U.S. Presidents Coloring Book. She has been coloring through the pages with her little brother and trying to explain what she has learned. If you have littles, you understand that this is such a wonderful bonus!!!
Lynn –
There are so many interesting things to learn in “The Interactive Constitution” and “Understanding the Constitution” is ideal for recording what has been learned and digging deeper through the bonus projects.
The notebook companion is open-and-go and very straightforward to use, with students directed to specific pages in the key text, “The Interactive Constitution”, to answer the questions and complete the tasks. There are notebooking/comprehension questions, drawing tasks, vocabulary work and copywork activities.
Examples of tasks include, answering what the Three-Fifths Compromise decided and why slave states wanted to count slaves in their population, drawing and labelling a picture of the US Capitol Building, and writing about famous decisions of the Supreme Court and why they matter.
For each topic, there is also a choice of bonus activities to dig deeper or reflect in the form of writing prompts and research projects, with the latter being targeted at older students, making this notebook companion suitable for a wide range of ages from upper elementary through middle school and junior high.
Topics covered include: what is the Constitution, creating the Constitution, the Preamble, the Legislative Branch, the Executive Branch, the Judicial Branch, Amending the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
The bonus freebie, “U.S. Presidents Coloring Notebook”, featuring colouring and notebooking (template) pages for each of the 45 presidents of the United States (great illustrations!) is ideal for recording facts, quotes, etc, and adding to your students’ notebook on the Constitution.
I would love an equivalent for UK politics/law!
Melanie Zorr –
This is a great resource to go with a really cool interactive book, The Interactive Constitution. The book itself has fold outs, popups, sliding pieces, highlighted words, and more to really make it as interactive as possible. Understanding the Constitution Notebooking companion breaks the book into page by page way of digesting the information. There are places for definitions, a timeline, drawing pictures of what you read, and so much more! It walks you through each of the interactive components of the book and allows you to really understand the Constitution. This is the perfect way to understand the Constitution of the United States in a fun and engaging manner. I so wish this was available when I was learning about the Constitution! This makes it fun! Looking forward to diving in to this resource with my 4th and 5th grade students. Thanks so much for all of your hard work! I am always excited to find out what is coming out next!
Katherine Tanyu –
How I wish we had a similar book when I was younger! History was blah for me, because the books were dry and dull. The accompanying book The Interactive Constitution is gorgeous, and this notebook companion breaks it down covering the book entirely. We just finished an overview of American history this year, and I would love to have this book pairing included in our curriculum.
You will be meeting a lot of people in this notebook and expect tons of writing assignments. It is very meaty–all 72 pages of it. Hence, it is recommended for grades 3 and up. However, you can try having younger kids dictate the answers to you instead of them writing everything down. And when they are older, repeat the other parts of the notebook. There is something for everyone. Older kids can move on to research projects for additional learning. Younger kids can draw and color. A glossary can be found at the end for important vocabulary words. I love that the notebook companion acts like an outline for learning about the Constitution. It is a lesson plan that is already laid out for me! This is a standalone tool (with the accompanying book) for the topic–no need to look for other references unless you want to dive deep in the future.
I received the U.S. Presidents Coloring Notebook for free with my download. The big portraits are helpful for memory recall when you are studying about them in your homeschool.
For its price (and the included freebie), I very much recommend Understanding the Constitution. The discussion questions are all there–just open and go!