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This a is a topic list organized by Cornell Law of decisions made by the Supreme Court. Good resource for possible research projects.

Tough read for kids but great background for teachers.

This is a great 1st Amendment overview provided by Cornell University Law School. It explains the basics of of the amendment. However, it also goes into some of the limits and restraint within the amendment.

Elementary students can use this website to understand how a bill becomes a law. The process is broken down in child friendly language and there is a great interactive glossary. Students can hover the mouse over a word and the definition will pop up.

This is awesome Laura! Great find!

Great Game that allows you to create a politician and try to pass a bill through congress.  You must read through constituents letters, decide on an issue to focus on, rally support, compromise with the other house and send the bill to the president. I had a lot of fun playing it and I think students would as well.

Great 20 minute video on Gideon v. Wainwright created by the Annenberg Foundation Trust at Sunnylands Seminars - The Judicial Branch. They try to "jazz" it up using graphics and music, but it's a great review of how one man can change the constitution. This is part of a 3 DVD series. Worth getting.

Albert, thanks for sharing this. It is totally appropriate for a high school classroom and shows how even the most common of people can influence the law of the land.

The Oyez Project is the best site available for Supreme Court decisions and business currently before the court. As I write this description, there are currently two articles about the court considering same-sex marriage issues on the front page.

Included is a document description, a transcript, the ten amendments, a timeline and games to play. The games include The Court and Democracy, Law, Power and Personality and The First Hundred Years. Each game begins with a question and then you can scroll over certain areas. Interesting facts in these games.

Although I didn't use this entire lesson, there are some excellent vocabulary and 'anatomy' of the Constitution PDFs that would work well in lower grades and perhaps with ELL students.  Good overview of the structure of government and the powers and duties of the 3 branches. I feel that there is a lot to take from this lesson to use in class.

This games has students play each of the branches of government in order to create laws, support and defend them. It's simplified enough for young students (upper elementary and middle school) and very engaging. It takes about 30 minutes to play the whole game, but I was able to get quite a bit out of it in just 10 minutes. It helps to clarify the roles of each of the branches of government and how they work together.

Annenberg materials are always reliable and both the games are certainly usable for upper elementary students.

This is a card-matching game providing students with practice classifying information by culture. Key topics for comparison/contrast and sorting include citizenship requirements, legislative function, selection of the executive, characteristics of a jury, role of trial lawyers, law code, uses of the Death Penalty, use of slavery, position of women. Overall goal of lesson is to provide students with reinforcement of key ideas and talking points for considering the impact of Ancient Athenian and Ancient Roman democracy on the United States.

Great game for middle school students.

This will be perfect for my curriculum. It is nice to have a whole class of researchers helping me out! Have you used this before, Allison?

A variety of games built on the founding documents; one fun one is "Do I Have a RIght?" Great for middle school.

This website has interactive games to understand the branches of the government, the Supreme Court and and passing laws. There are also teacher resources, which include curriculum units on topics such as the Constitution, citizenship, the branches of government and state and local government.

This site would be useful for high school students exploring the rights of felons to vote. It compares different state laws. The sidebar options would help set up students to debate the issue.

This website provides a great breakdown of the Constitution in kid-friendly language. It can be a great resource for lower achieving students who are trying to tackle the often complex language of the document.

I like this site because it is so available for middle school kids. Well worth bookmarking and using.