Mrs. Klipfel's Top Teaching Tips: The Three Branches of the Legislature

Are you Smarter than a Fifth Grader?

Mrs. Madden's Fifth Graders were hard at work for the past two weeks researching The Constitution and the Three Branches of Government. They took notes and highlighted important information. The students then created a minimum of 5 slides to include: title page, Legislative Branch, Executive Branch. Judicial Branch, and Checks and Balances. Many students included extra credit pages as well. They then recorded their voice and added extra details for their final educreations presentation.

Quotes of the Day:
"I loved it!"
"It was really fun because we got to use iPads and I have never really used one. The end was fun when I became an expert."
"I like taking pictures."
"Educreations was fun to use. You get to speak for yourself and highlight. You can't do that on other things."
"This was fun to use. You can draw and create a video while underlining."
"You get to be really creative. It is easy to use pictures. I learned some new things."
"I want to do this again!"

"The Founding Fathers, the framers of the Constitution, wanted to form a government that did not allow one person to have too much authority or control. While under the rule of the British king they learned that this could be a bad system. Yet government under the Articles of Confederation taught them that there was a need for a strong centralized government.

With this in mind the framers wrote the Constitution to provide for a separation of powers, or three separate branches of government. Each has its own responsibilities and at the same time they work together to make the country run smoothly and to assure that the rights of citizens are not ignored or disallowed. This is done through checks and balances. A branch may use its powers to check the powers of the other two in order to maintain a balance of power among the three branches of government."