Celebrate Freedom During Constitution Week, Sept. 17-23

Whether you call it Celebrate Freedom Week (TEC § 29.907) or Constitution Week, Sept. 17–23 is a time to teach students about the history of our nation’s founding documents—the Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights—and the interplay between the ideas they contain and significant events in American history. Sept. 17 is the anniversary of the date delegates to the Constitutional Convention signed the U.S. Constitution in 1787.

The history of Constitution Week

Constitution Week was established by the U.S. Congress to encourage all Americans to learn about the Constitution. Constitution Week celebrates the signing of the U.S. Constitution and was started by the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR). In 1955, DAR petitioned Congress to annually recognize Sept. 17–23 as Constitution Week. The resolution was later adopted by the U.S. Congress and signed into public law on Aug. 2, 1956, by President Dwight D. Eisenhower.

According to DAR, the goals of the Constitution Week celebration are: 

• Emphasizing citizens’ responsibilities for protecting and defending the Constitution.
• Informing people that the Constitution is the basis for America’s great heritage and the foundation for our way of life.
• Encouraging the study of historical events that led to the framing of the Constitution in September 1787.

Resources for Celebrate Freedom and Constitution Week lesson plans

• Check out the Texas Education Agency’s Celebrate Freedom Week webpage, which links to a variety of resources, including materials from the Law-Related Education (LRE) Department of the State Bar of Texas.
• Visit the National Constitution Center’swebsite for a variety of live classes, virtual town halls, a media library, and other Constitution Day activities, as well as an interactive Constitution.
• Head over to the Library of Congress websitefor Constitution Day activities, lesson plans, and a free ebook for your classroom.
• The National Endowment for the Humanitiesprovides a teacher’s guide with lesson plans and resources to help students learn about the framework of our constitutional republic.
• Find interesting activities related to population data and apportionment in this downloadable handout from the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistics in Schools program.

If you’re in the Houston area, consider visiting the Morris Family Center for Law & Liberty at Houston Christian University, which is housed in a building modeled after Independence Hall in Philadelphia. The center offers free self-guided tours as well as field trip experiences for fifth graders.