Legislative Members

I am going to start with the Legislative Branch.  This is how I teach the national (Legislative- Article I in U.S. Constitution, Executive- Article II in U.S. Constitution and then Judicial- Article II in U.S. Constitution).  I remind the students that the U.S. government is strongly based on Virginia's and remind them that our Virginia and National Governments are very similar.

SOL CE.7a is the SOL that describes the structure and powers of the state government.  Under the Essential Knowledge is where I got the idea for this particular foldable.  Students need to know that the General Assembly is bicameral (having two houses) and those houses are the Virginia Senate and House of Delegates.  So, I decided to make a modified shutter fold.  It is modified because I left about a quarter inch at the top to write the title of the foldable.  For this foldable you only need a third of a sheet.

You can see that I titled this foldable "Virginia Legislative Branch" and one side I wrote "House of Delegates" and then the other "Virginia Senate".  I always make sure I delineate between the National Senate in Washington, D.C. and the Virginia Senate in Richmond.  I call the National Senate simply "The Senate" in class and then Virginia Senate is "Virginia Senate".

When you open it up you now have two spaces to write something.  On the outside flaps I downloaded pictures from each of my two State Legislator's websites.  Because my school is on the line between districts I use my school address.  If you are unsure of who your state legislators are you can go to the Virginia's General Assembly website by clicking here.

On the inside I wrote their names and their political party affiliation.  I like to put the party because it reminds them of the political process we discussed in the fall.

Remind students to write their name on the back and put it in their baggie!

Happy teaching!
Cori