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The Preamble
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The Preamble to the United States Constitution is a great way to begin a school year while establishing your own classroom community. Have your students look at the meaning of this one paragraph to view their community and how they want to create this year’s community in whatever grade you are in. I will make sure that this lesson also involves some vocabulary study on what the bold words mean as well as those “tier 3” words.
We the People of ________________, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish ________ insure ___________, provide ____________, promote ___________, and secure _______________ to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the _________________.
I think you will be surprised just how much they will learn and use throughout the year. This also provides ownership to their community, the classroom.
I will use The Preamble again when speaking about our election also. I will ask my older students to view a debate and fill out a “Preamble” for each of the candidates.
_____________________ in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish ________ insure ___________, provide ____________, promote ___________, and secure _______________ to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the We the People .
I am hoping that this will promote a focus on the issues of each candidate. If you use this approach in your classroom, I hope you will share with me and this community your success of this lesson. Thoughts?
Below I have collected some links you may find helpful in explaining The Preamble to your students as well as some great interactives for them.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/preamble/
https://www.archives.gov/founding-docs/constitution-transcript
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/creating-the-united-states/interactives/constitution/
3 - 5 6 - 8 9 - 12 13+ Social Studies/History English/Language Arts Special Education
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What a great idea to merge lessons in classroom community with history & government! Love this 
Cheryl Best
!
Thank you,
Cheryl Best
, for sharing this timely and important lesson for students and adults of all ages!
Your excellent suggestions for resources are also relevant to the upcoming observance of Constitution Day, as required by federal law.
Fantastic activities
Cheryl Best
! Here's one more lesson that helps students strengthen vocabulary and deepen understanding of the Preamble has students matching phrases from the Preamble with primary source images. The images are actually photos of bas reliefs from the Greenbelt [MD] Community Building that were originally created to represent those same phrases.
Thank you, this is great! This will add the understanding. Thank you for sharing!
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