Government Functions Worksheet

The Government Functions Worksheet answers the question in its own heading with the part of civics a third grader can see from the school bus. A town government is not an abstraction to a child: it is the library they borrow from, the bridge they cross, the park with the swings and the people who come when someone is hurt. Part A puts those four services into sentences with a word missing from each, and a five word box supplies the vocabulary.

Part B asks the harder question underneath. Six things are listed, and the child circles the three a town pays for. A library, a fire truck and a park are shared, and everybody in town gets them; a video game, a candy bar and a toy car belong to whoever bought them. That single sort is the first real idea of public service, and this Government Functions Worksheet leaves it as the thing children argue about. The word box carries a fifth entry, museum, that finishes none of the sentences, so the last blank cannot be filled by crossing the others off. The answer key is on page two.

What’s Included

• Four fill in the blank sentences about local government services
• A five word box with one distractor that completes no sentence
• A six item sort: which things does a town pay for, and which does a family buy
• One answer line length for every blank, so no line hints at its own answer
• Soft shaded cartoon artwork of a fire truck, one of the services on the page
• A complete answer key on the final page
• A print-ready PDF sized for standard letter paper

Three Reasons This Helps Kids

• Naming services a child has actually used makes government concrete before any of the vocabulary arrives.
• Sorting shared things from private ones is the idea every later civics lesson is built on, and it needs no politics to teach.
• The sentences describe each service instead of defining it, so a child has to reason from what a place does rather than recognise a word.

Ideas for Teachers and Parents

Before the page, ask the class to list everything they passed on the way to school and mark which ones the town looks after. Work Part A together, then let Part B run as a short discussion: somebody always argues for the fire truck belonging to the firefighters, which is exactly the conversation to have. Finish by asking children to name one more service the town pays for. This 3rd grade government worksheet works well in a community unit, as a social studies center, or as review before a civics quiz.

Related Resources

• Government Services Worksheet
• Community Workers Worksheet
• Identifying Community Workers Worksheet
• Community Song