No Taxation Without Representation! (4th Graders Revolt)

"We only had six pennies!"

As I mentioned before, we are amidst our American Revolution unit in Social Studies. Today, in order to have a more "authentic" experience, the students were colonists living in America. A tax system was set in place.

The guidelines:

-Six pennies to start the day for each "colonist".
-An index card to get stamped each time a colonist paid a tax.
-One pencil that must be used the entire day.

Taxes:

-Must pay for any handout given, such as the math review.
-Must pay to sharpen your pencil.
-Must pay to have recess. (This really started to cause some revolting!)
-If wanted, must pay for an extra 5 minutes of recess.

Some students spoke out after the recess tax with quite a bit of frustration!

"How I feel about taxes, is mad and sad because I'm giving money away. Also if I want to spend it on something I can't because there will be nothing left." -JJ

"I think taxation without representation is not fair because we are having to pay to play and I refused to pay, so I didn't get to play. This is very unfair for the colonists." -AA

"I think King Gentry is being very unfair taxing us wihtout representation. It's really not fair! How rude! She's taxing us for things I used everyday! I would hate to live in the 1700s with taxation without representation. I feel very, very, very MAD!" -HW



Investigating the Stamp Act

"I feel mad! I have to pay for my recess! Really? So mad!:/" -AC

"I feel angry! I feel like nothing I say or do will make her stop! Taxation is just not fair! I can't even do recess without being taxed!" -BM

"I feel so mad that I have to pay for sharpening my pencil, getting a piece of paper, and I have to pay if I want recess. I just don't think that's fair!" -KK

"We have to pay taxes for recess, paper, and to sharpen our pencil. :( "
-HS

"I feel bad that we have to pay for recess! I mean come on! It stinks." -EP


Working hard

At the end of the day, colonists were able to trade their left over money for "goods".

What an exciting day!

No More Kings

Our new Social Studies unit is the American Revolution.  We have enjoyed viewing this School House Rock video, No More Kings to help us understand why people traveled to the New World.

Enjoy!

Frazier Arms Museum Field Trip

We had a great time today at the Frazier Arms Museum! Here's a peek at some of our favorite moments.  This would be a great family outting! They are even going to have a Toy Story display soon!

(We are learning about non-fiction text features...so the kiddos used their new schema on captions to create these picture captions themselves!)

Funny man dressed like a person from the Middle Ages!



"This is really heavy!"




She is standing by iron mesh from the Middle Ages!



He's really trying to get that bow and arrow back!




"I am the mighty minotaur!"

They really had to think!