At one point in time, I knew most of what the government of the United States does. I know that when our nine or eleven-year-old asks me questions about this or that regarding the government it all sounds familiar, but nailing down the precise answer is challenging. For situations like this, you need The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Documents that Shapes our Nation. This is a reference book for The Constitution. It presents the preamble, all of the articles, amendments, The Declaration of Independence, and the Articles of the Confederation. It has these documents in their entirety, and on the page opposite, it explains it in simple English.
Middle school USA government doesn’t get better than this