Federal legislation requires schools in the United States to offer lessons related to the U.S. Constitution on U.S. Constitution Day — September 17th of each year.

You might also be interested in The Best Resources For “Bill Of Rights Day.”

Here are my choices for The Best Sites For Learning About The Constitution Of The United States:

The Constitution Center has to be everybody’s first stop. It has a ton of resources. They are particularly known for their Interactive Constitution and lots of other online interactives and games.

Here are collections of the online lessons I used in my United States History classes last year on the Bill of Rights and on the Constitution.

The Constitution For Kids has three “levels” of explanations about the U.S. Constitution. An English Language Learner — from high Beginning to Advanced — can choose which one he/she finds most accessible.

The History Channel has many multimedia features related to the Constitution.

How Stuff Works has many videos related to the Constitution.

Here’s an interactive “learning object” from the Wisconsin Online Resource Center on Amendments To The Constitution.

The Henry Ford Museum has a short Constitution I.Q. test that would be accessible to English Language Learners after they have studied about the United States government.

Here’s a bilingual (English/Spanish) glossary for the Constitution.

Quiz Tree has some interactive quizzes on the Constitution.

Celebrate The Constitution comes from Scholastic.

Here’s an interactive on the Bill of Rights.

Here’s an infographic on the Constitution.

Resources for Teaching the Constitution is a nice compilation of resources from The New York Times Learning Network.

For Constitution Day, I can’t think of anything that would prepare a teacher better than to read Bill Bigelow’s piece, It’s Constitution Day! Time to Teach Obedience or History?

Here are the last two paragraphs:

Asking students to think critically about the Constitution is not a demand for them to come to any particular conclusion about the Constitution and those who drafted it. Rather, treating the Constitution as a product of social conflict and written by partisans in that conflict implicitly gives students permission to become thinkers. No longer intimidated by the document’s holy status, they can analyze and draw their own conclusions. And part of the analysis that our students need to do today is to ask of any social policy: Who benefits? Educators can introduce race and class as key categories of inquiry — an exploration that is essential if young people are to think clearly about everything from climate change to health care.

Today, we need young people who can look at the world from multiple perspectives — especially from the perspectives of those who may not be well served by our society’s arrangements of wealth and power. On this Constitution Day, let’s encourage schools to teach outside the textbook as part of a broader curriculum of critical thinking.

Feedback is welcome.

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