Branches of Government Lesson Plan: U.S. Government

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This lesson accompanies the BrainPOP topic Branches of Government, and supports the standard of analyzing the organizational structure (legislative, executive, judicial branches) and powers of the federal government. Students demonstrate understanding through a variety of projects.

Step 1: ACTIVATE PRIOR KNOWLEDGE

Ask students:

• How are decisions made in your school or classroom? 
• How can school community leaders make decisions that are fair for everyone, or that consider everyone’s interests?

Step 2: BUILD KNOWLEDGE

• Read the description on the Branches of Government topic page.
• Play the Movie, pausing to check for understanding. 
• Have students read one of the Related Reading articles. Partner them with someone who read a different article to share what they learned with each other.
  

Step 3: APPLY and ASSESS 

Students take the Branches of Government Challenge and Quiz, applying essential literacy skills while demonstrating what they learned about this topic.

Step 4: EXTEND and DEEPEN

Students express what they learned about the branches of government while practicing essential literacy skills with one or more of the following activities. Differentiate by assigning ones that meet individual student needs.

• Make-a-Movie: Create a video journal from the point of view of the President, a Supreme Court justice, or a member of congress that answers these questions:  What are your responsibilities in the government? How do you interact with other branches?
• Make-a-Map: Make a concept map identifying and explaining the role of each branch of government, and the ways they interact with one another.
• Creative Coding: Code a learning game challenging players to sort government-related vocabulary terms into self-selected categories.
• Primary Source Activity: Read an excerpt from The Federalist Papers and cite evidence to answer the accompanying questions. 

More to Explore

Branches of Power: Challenge students to apply their knowledge of checks and balances to run all three branches of the U.S. government in this interactive game.

LawCraft: Students draft a bill and follow it through the law-making process as a member of the U.S. Congress in this game.

U.S. Government Unit: Continue to build understanding around functions of the U.S. government with more BrainPOP topics.

Teacher Support Resources:

• Pause Point Overview: Video tutorial showing how Pause Points actively engage students  to stop, think, and express ideas. 
• Learning Activities Modifications: Strategies to meet ELL and other instructional and student needs.
• Learning Activities Support: Resources for best practices using BrainPOP.