GOVERNMENT TODAY
3rd Grade Unit
Government Today
Purpose of Local, State, and National
Government
Structure of Local, State and National
Government
Make Political, Social and Economic
Change through Government
Essential Questions
What is government?
What role do you play in government?
Enduring Understanding
What are the differences and similarities
among the local, state and national
government?
Standard: Distinguish among local, state and
national government and identify representative
leaders at these levels such as mayor, governor
and president.
Why do we need government in our society?
Standard: Explain the purpose of government.
Enduring Understanding
What rights do you have as a member
of a larger group?
Standard: Examine the rights and
responsibilities of the individual in relation
to his or her social group, such as family,
peer groups, and school class.
Key Perspectives
Making choices and taking action: The students
will be responsible in choosing the laws and rules
within their classroom.
Individual potential: They will learn about, as they
grow older, how their choices and actions are
affected by the government.
Justice, rights and responsibility: Learn about
equality in addition to learning about the duties of
the various people in the different levels of
government.
Interview
What is currently being done around the topic
of government?
Purpose of teaching government in third grade is mainly for
exposure purposes.
Introduce the students to the local, state and national governments
as well as issues of laws and how they affect citizens
For local government a teacher brings in a police officer to talk
about local laws
For state government a teacher has a state representative talk
about state government
The president is the focus of national government
Distinguish between city, state and country because they have
trouble distinguishing between them
Keep it basic because they would forget all the details anyway
Academic Readings
-Social education should reflect and incorporate current and future issues
and trends within the global society. (Zinn Chapter 1)
Learning about the government and how it relates to their lives makes the
children active participants in the global network. For primary level
students, taking action means taking small steps to improve the quality
of their day to day lives and if we make government meaningful to them
by bringing it down to their level then they will better understand their
role. We will be bringing in current events and discuss how they affect
our lives currently and in the future. By bringing these issues into the
classroom, we would also discuss how the government plays a role in
those issues.
-The important issues that young learners should explore are citizenship
and decision-making. (Zinn Chapter 1)
There will be a lot of decision-making in our classroom government which
will give them an understanding of the kinds of responsibilities a
government and citizens of society possess.
Rationale
Starting in third grade the students are becoming more responsible for their
schoolwork and personal decisions. Because of this it is age appropriate to
bring in the topic of government. It is also possible to bring it down to their level
so they can make personal connections. (Levstik, p.44)
It is also important to teach children about the government at a young age so they
begin the process of becoming informed citizens. Government is a huge part of
social studies and history. Many historical events have happened due to what
political people have said or done, so it is important for them to know their roles.
(Boring, p.98)
The unit is going to be partially teacher directed and also the students will be
exploring the issues further based on personal interest. Students will be
encouraged to question and explore why the government runs the way that it
does. (Levstik, p.45)
Literacy Links
Non-fiction government books:
-we would incorporate books on the different branches of government as well as
books on how to serve your community. (These books are to be used as an aid
to help the students have a better grasp of the concepts that they will be
learning.)
-At the third grade level, it is not exactly a topic that the students will be familiar
with yet and the use of literature in our unit is substantial in order to create
opportunities for the students to learn in the simplest of terms. (Steffey, Chapter
6)
Children’s Periodicals:
-We would incorporate Time For Kids in our unit, because this magazine does a
nice job of bringing challenging information down to a child’s level. It also makes
it interesting for them to get involved in.
Using newspapers:
-To begin our discussion on current events, we will have students bring
in newspaper articles to get them more involved in the global and local
world and then branch our learning off of those events. (Levstik, 58)
Developing speaking/listening experiences:
-The students will be developing speaking and listening skills
throughout this unit. The first experience with this skill will be through
their interviews. There will be much public speaking throughout the unit
which will aid in their development.
Tuning In
Decision Timeline
Think about the decisions you had to make
today. Did you make them? Did someone
else make them for you? Were you happy
with the decision that was made?
1.
2.
3.
4.
•
Whether or not to wake up
Whether or not to go to school
What to wear
What to eat for breakfast
Students will create and share a timeline of
these decisions.
Standard: Examine the rights and
responsibilities of the individual in
relation to his or her social group, such
as family, peer groups, and school class
Instructional strategy: Incorporating
Current Events
The students will be discussing the
current choices they have made that day.
Preparing to Find Out
KWL Chart about what we think we know
about our government
Guiding questions:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Who are the people that make up the
government?
Where do they live?
What do they do?
How do they affect us?
How do we affect them?
Standard:
Explain the purpose of government
Distinguish among local, state and
national government and identify
representative leaders at these levels
such as mayor, governor and president
Instructional strategy: Using surveys
We will be surveying the students
knowledge of government at this point in
the unit.
Finding Out
Researching local, state and national
government.
The teacher will lead a discussion of the roles
and differences of each level of government.
The students will use both local and national
newspapers and magazines to find pictures
and articles that represent some form of
government. Then they will place them in a 3
hula hoop Venn diagram for a better visual
representation.
Standard:
Examine the rights and responsibilities
of the individual in relation to his or her
social group, such as family, peer groups,
and school class
Explain the purpose of government
Distinguish among local, state and
national government and identify
representative leaders at these levels
such as mayor, governor and president.
Instructional strategy:
Incorporating Current Events
Using community resources
Using documents/primary source
materials
They will be searching through current
events using primary source materials
such as newspapers and magazines from
the community and beyond.
Sorting Out
Looking at profiles of government
officials
Research roles and responsibilities of
president, governor and mayor
Take artifacts from Venn diagram and
integrate them into the lesson to further
their understanding visually of these
positions.
Standard:
Distinguish among local, state and national
government and identify representative
leaders at these levels such as mayor,
governor and president
Instructional strategy:
Using documents/primary source materials
The students will use magazines and
newspapers from the previous lessons to help
them better understand the differences in the
roles.
Going Further
The voice of the people
Interview the superintendent, principal
and teacher and compare their roles to
those of the president, governor and
mayor respectively.
The students will be creating interview
questions in order to find out about
these peoples positions.
Standard:
Explain the purpose of government
Distinguish among local, state and
national government and identify
representative leaders at these levels
such as mayor, governor and president
Instructional strategy: Using interviews
The students will be practicing their
interviewing skills in order to gain more
knowledge about these positions.
Making Connections
Creating a classroom government
Students will discuss how and why they
would classroom government.
The students will elect classroom
officers and create a classroom
“government” explained through their
own definition.
Standard:
Explain the purpose of government
Examine the rights and responsibilities
of the individual in relation to his or her
social group, such as family, peer groups,
and school class
Instructional strategy:Using role
play/debate/simulation
The students will create a simulation of
a government.
Taking Action
Proving your role as an informed citizen
Through their evolving understanding
students will see they the change they as
third graders can make in the community.
The students will come up with ideas of how
they can help to improve and contribute to the
betterment of their community.
They will generate a plan to implement and
make change.
Standard:
Explain the purpose of government
Examine the rights and responsibilities
of the individual in relation to his or her
social group, such as family, peer groups,
and school class
Instructional strategy:Field experience
The students will first handedly
experience the process of making change
within their community.
Formative Assessment
The students will journal periodically
throughout the unit on different topics such as
how the government has affected them that
day, what they are still having questions
about, what they think should change, etc.
The teacher will have conferences with the
students during the classroom government
phase to assess progress, how things are
going and answer any questions.
Summative Assessment
The students will work in groups to create a
government for a newly discovered planet.
They must come up with the rules, the
various leadership positions, and other
structural elements for their government.
They will present their ideas at the end of the
unit to their fellow classmates.
Reflections
Process
If it was not for one of our cooperating
teachers we would not have known where
to start
It is difficult to distinguish between
essential and enduring questions
It is so much easier to work with a group
on units
Big Picture
Unit planning vs.. lesson activity planning
we found to be much more feasible than
individually completing each lesson
Unit planning allows for the teacher to
cater the lesson to his/her students’
needs
Content
The content of our unit focus is on a few key
aspects of government as learning about the
broad topic of “government” is too
overwhelming. The benefits of focusing our
topics allow the students to learn those areas
more thoroughly than memorizing route facts.
This is a unit that incorporates hands-on
activities to enable learning on all levels.
This unit will reflect our
future work by…
Encouraging us to work with our peers
in the future because of the obvious
benefits in surplus ideas and knowledge
Researching Local, State,
and National Government
Lesson Plan
Purpose
• Essential/Driving Question:
What is government?
• Enduring Understanding:
What are the differences and similarities among the local,
state and national government?
• Key Concepts:
Justice, rights, and responsibility
Standards Alignment:
Examine the rights and responsibilities
of the individual in relation to his or her
social group, such as family, peer
groups, and school class
Students will learn how individuals have
rights and responsibilities through various
media articles and through class
discussions about the different types of
articles found in the class
Standards Alignment (cont.):
Explain the purpose of government:
Searching through magazines and
newspapers for articles about the
government, students will gain a very brief
and basic understanding of its purpose
Standards Alignment (cont.):
Distinguish among local, state, and
national government and identify
representative leaders at these levels
such as mayor, governor and president.
This standard will be addressed when
students sort out the articles they found into
local, state, and national government. They
will also begin to see how sometimes there
is overlap between the three levels.
Materials Needed:
Variety of local and national newspapers
and magazines
3 Hula-Hoops
Large sheet of paper
Markers
Glue
Procedure:
1. The lesson begins with a teacher-led
discussion about the roles and differences of
each level of government. Students should
learn from the discussion that local
governments only make rules and decisions
for their local area, state governments only
for their specific state, and the national
government oversees the entire nation. At
this time, students should see if they can
name any people who hold governmental
offices and try and identify at which level
their office is.
Procedure (cont.):
2.
3.
After the discussion, students should get into small
groups and go through the various newspapers and
magazines in search for articles or photographs that are
about government at any level. As they go along, they
should begin to sort their articles into national, state, and
local groups.
Once all groups have had enough time to search
through the different media, the class should gather
around the hula-hoops arranged into a three-circle Venn
diagram with a circle for each level of government. Each
group should take a turn placing their article or photo
into the appropriate hoop. (Some may fit into more than
one level of government.) Students should explain why
the chose to classify their articles as local, state or
national.
Procedure (cont.):
5. After all of the articles have been placed into the
Venn diagram, discuss why students might have
found more articles about one level of government
than another. Also discuss why/how there could be
overlap among the different levels. What kind of
articles/photos fit into all three levels?
6. Using the large sheet of bulletin board paper,
recreate the Venn diagram. This can be done either
by pasting the actual articles onto the paper, or by
summarizing each article and writing it in the
diagram.
Adaptations for individual or group differences:
If students are experiencing difficulties locating
articles about government in the various medias,
this step could be skipped and they could classify
material the teacher has already selected. The
difficulty of the pre-selected material would depend
on the students’ capabilities.
An adaptation to this lesson for one or two students
would be to pair them up in a group of students and
give them a certain role such as recorder of material
found. They could also provide illustrations to go
along with the articles students find.
Assessment:
We will use formative assessment to gauge student
learning from this lesson. After the lesson, students
will write in their journal about how their everyday
lives are affected by government using the
information they presented in the Venn-Diagram.
Informal assessment will also be used throughout
the lesson. The teacher will be able to see whether
or not students are understanding the difference
between each level of government when they are
classifying their articles into the Venn diagram.
Bibliography
Teacher
Knowing Your Government: Your Rights and Responsibilities. Glove Fearon.
Educational Publisher, 1994
Levstik, Linda S. Doing History. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Publishers
London, 2001
Steffey, Stephanie and Hood, Wendy J. If This Is Social Studies, Why Isn’t It
Boring? Stenhouse Publishers. Portland, Maine, 1994
Children
Granfield, Linda. America Votes: How Our President Is Elected. Scholastic Inc.
2003
Both
Giesecke, Ernestine. Local Government Kids’ Guide. Hanemann Library. Chicago,
Il. Reed Educational Professional Publishing 2000