The King's M&Ms

I was reading a blogger's Facebook page and saw that another teacher posted about The King's M&Ms and encouraged fifth grade teachers to Google it.  So I did.  Wow!  We had fun, fun, fun!!

Right when we came back from Winter Break, I had put my students into groups: England, New England Colonists, Middle Colonists, and Southern Colonists.  In my previous post, I was fomenting war in my room.  Then after lunch, they walked into a classroom that had 10 M&Ms in a coffee filter on each desk, and a set (non-latex) gloves on each tax collector's desk. Each member of Parliament, the Prime Minister, and King George III had index cards with dialogue on them.  They got up and spoke their lines about budgeting and how the French and Indian War had drained their accounts.  The PM suggested that they tax the colonists.

After that, the tax collectors stood up and addressed the colonists.  They read from cards and then went around and collected taxes.

The colonists played along and were properly outraged that they had to pay so much money.  After the King had his 40% and the PM had her 30%, and Parliament split their 20%, and the Tax Collectors got their 10%, I asked the students to write about their experiences as a colonist or an Englishman. While they were writing, I evened out the "income" so all students got a handful of M&Ms in their coffee filter.