The King’s M & M’s

Formative Assessment:

· What is a tax?

· What were some items colonists paid taxes on?

Instructional Strategies or Activities:

The student will demonstrate an understanding of why the colonists were angry over taxes after playing the King’s M & M’s.

The teacher will make up the taxes before class begins by writing out on separate index cards what is to be taxed and how much. Some suggestions are: tennis shoes, jewelry, watch, jeans, colors, etc. The teacher will also make cards for the students to draw telling them whether they are a colonist, a tax collector, Parliament, or the King. There should be one King, two members of Parliament, two tax collectors, and the rest colonists.

The teacher will provide each student with a small bag of M & M’s (you can divide a big bag into zip-lock bags of about 20). The students will draw a card to see what person they will be. After the positions have been chosen, the King, Parliament, and the tax collectors need to come to the front of the room. Parliament will draw from your tax cards one at a time to see what is going to be taxed. After each card is drawn, the tax collectors will go around the room and collect from each student who needs to pay. (For example, if the tax card says Tennis shoes-2, then any person wearing tennis shoes will need to pay 2 M & M’s to the tax collectors.) Repeat this until all tax cards have been drawn.

When all taxes have been paid for all items, Parliament will divide the taxes up between them, the tax collectors, and the King. The King will get 50%, Parliament gets 30% to divide between them, and the tax collectors get 20% to divide between them.

The teacher will then lead the students in a discussion about the taxes and how they made them feel.

Some possible discussion questions:

· Why were the taxes so unfair?

· How did you feel about the tax collectors?

· How do you think the colonists felt about the taxes they paid?

· If you were a colonist, would you have agreed with declaring independence from Britain and why?

Summative Assessment:

The teacher will observe the students during the discussion to see that they are relating their feelings during the game to how the colonists felt about their taxes and why they chose to become independent.