Interesting and lots of fun

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Home : 2002 : November : 22

Interesting and lots of fun
By Brooke

I do not know about the particular lesson that you are asking for, but I do know of some other interesting S.S. ideas. I had a teacher once that showed us a Social studies simulation. It was about the events that led up
to the Boston tea party. Give each student a container that has the following in it: plastic cup with 10- 20 m&m's in it, a slip of paper that tells them their part ( 1 king(or queen), 2 tax collectors, 1 member of parliment, and the rest will be colonists). The number of M&M's that the student gets depends on what part they have. King- 20, parliment- 15, tax collectors- 13, Colonists-

between 5 and 12( some colonists are rich and others are poor). Then the king, parliment, and tax collectors go to the front of the room. The parliment will choose an item they would like to "tax". ( The parliment will have slips of paper with things written on them that the students will have at their seat, for example: backback, pencil, marker, blue jeans, red shirt, etc. Each item will have a certain amount of tax. For example, If you are wearing a red shirt you must pay taxes of 4 M&M's, if not wearing a red shirt you pay nothing.) The parliment chooses which item they would like to tax and then take it to the king for approval, the king reads it to the class. The tax collectors will go around the room and collect the taxes. After a few rounds of taxes the kings decides that he wants to get paid. He will pay himself, 50% of the M&M's (math involved), the parliment, 25% of the M&M's ( they must then split it) and the tax collectors, 10% of the M&M's (they must also split it) The king can decide how many times he wants to tax or the teacher can put a limit on it. At the end the students can eat the M&M's. IT will be necessary to give the colonists additional M&M's to eat. After, the simulation, it will be a lot more interesting for the students to read the chapter. They will be able to relate it to themselves. I have been told that their are resource books availiable with many other simulation activities in them. I hope this helps and make some sense.