Classroom Activities
Day 1- Teacher can start by posing the following question:
What is a government?
Who is part of the government?
Why do we have a government?
What would happen if we didn’t have a government?
How do we elect people to represent a job in the government?
Students will use this time to think pair and share their ideas and thoughts that go along with the question. The use of technology can be used for this activity, for example, Brainpop is a great resource as far as fun videos to show kid-friendly understanding.
On this day the students will decide as a class the type of jobs our classroom community should have.
For example: A door holder, line leader, teacher assistance, material person, technology person, table captains, classroom librarians, and the caboose.
The class will go through what they think each job should consist of. For example the door holder should always open the door and close the door, how should the line leader lead the line, perhaps the discussion of does the teacher assistant and the material person have the same kind of job? Should the class eliminate one job and make it into one. The teacher can lead these discussions to have kids think about the kind of jobs and the kind of responsibilities it entitles.
Pose the question, how should we decide which student will do what job? Should we vote? Or have the teacher pull sticks with names.
Day 2- On this day students will be introduced to the three governments the United States has. The executive, legislative, and judicial branch. Students can visually use YouTube channels or Brainpop videos to give an idea. The use of a foldable or a tree map can be used.
Legislative Branch- Make the law, this is set up by two houses (The senate and the House)
Senate: the people who the state elects to speak for the people (comparable to the Iroquoian League of Nation)
Executive Branch- enforce the laws being made (Our United States president is part of this branch)
The Judicial Branch- interprets the law (The Supreme Court and the local courts)
- These three branches have to work together to make sure we who live the United States are protected by the law and that they have to same rights as their fellow citizens.
Day 3- Students will be introduced to the Navajo Government and the roles the people play in it.
On this day the question can be asked, “Do you know who your tribal president is?” this will give the teacher an idea of what the kids know and not know of who governs them and their family in a government setting.
Talk about how many chapters there on the reservation and who takes part in the meetings that go on in the Navajo Nation.
Showing of a map broken down in chapters will help to visually explain the boundaries and just how big the Navajo Reservation is.
Day 4- Students will use a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two governments.
On this day students with the help of the teacher will compare and contrast the roles of the United States president and the Tribal president. The two government, what is the same and what is different?
Day 5- On this day the teacher will go over all the information that was handed out during the week to wrap up the government lesson. On this day the teacher will check for understanding.
By having several think pair share discussions.
Day 6- On this day students will be asked the question: What does voting mean? The teacher will ask the students to think about the question, then have the students talk to their partner to discuss what they think the term is, then the teacher can bring everyone together and have a classroom discussion about the term voting. Taking the ideas from the students and writing the ideas down. Teacher and students will make a list of things people can vote on. What kind of things can students in the classroom vote on?
Day 7- On this day the teacher will talk about how in our history voting was not always fair between people. Using kid-friendly terms the teacher will talk about how the fact about your skin color or the kind of person you are, you may not have had the right to vote. Classroom activity will be the idea of we are going to vote on the kind of movie we want to watch on a Friday movie day. The thing about that was when we are about to get to vote one table has a circle underneath taped and that table didn't get to vote because they are the ones left out. In doing this activity it is important to play in the accounts of feelings. The teacher will bring the class around and we will talk about the activity together. This will give an understanding of how it was.
Day 8- The teacher will pose the question: Do you think we should have a classroom president? Yes or no? Then we can discuss why or why not we should have one, then to further their thinking the question of what the class presidents job is can be discussed.
Comments: