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5th grade · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 6

Road to Revolution

Taxes, protests and Patriots

What your child practices

British taxes, colonial protests such as boycotts and the Boston Tea Party, the Continental Congresses, and why Loyalists and Patriots saw things differently.

Alaska content standards learning standard: SS.5.1.24.1; SS.5.3.13.1 · the causes of the American Revolution, including British taxes in the colonies

How we explain it

Children can open this short lesson before they practice.

  1. Britain taxed the colonies after 1763 to pay debts from the French and Indian War.
  2. Colonists had no elected members in Parliament: “No taxation without representation.”
  3. The Sons of Liberty protested, Committees of Correspondence shared news, and the Quartering Act made colonists house soldiers.

Example: Why did Britain start taxing the colonies after 1763? Britain had just fought a long war in North America. Wars cost a lot of money. Answer: to pay its debts from the French and Indian War

Road to Revolution in Alaska

In the Alaska content standards, this is unit 3 of 6 in 5th grade Social Studies, after Colonial Trade & Work and before The American Revolution.

Gradelings describes a child's practice on this unit as Beginning, Approaching, Meeting or Exceeding (Four practice steps). That reflects practice, not a report-card mark: the teacher decides the mark.

Source: Alaska Department of Education and Early Development

Sample questions

A taste of this unit. In the app, questions change every time and get easier or harder to match your child.

  1. Question 1

    The Committees of Correspondence helped colonists…

    • share news and plan protests
    • build ships
    • elect a king
    • collect British taxes

  2. Question 2

    Which colonists were called Loyalists?

    • Those who moved to Spain
    • Those who were French
    • Those who wanted independence
    • Those who stayed loyal to the British king

  3. Question 3

    Patrick Henry is remembered for saying…

    • "Remember the ladies"
    • "We the People"
    • "Four score and seven years ago"
    • "Give me liberty, or give me death!"

  4. Question 4

    What was a boycott in colonial times?

    • A kind of ship
    • A British soldier
    • Refusing to buy British goods as a protest
    • A tax on paper

  5. Question 5

    In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote that Parliament…

    • should rule the colonies forever
    • could tax the colonies freely
    • was always right
    • had no right to make laws for the colonies

  6. Question 6

    What was the main cause-and-effect pattern in the years before the Revolution?

    • Each tax made colonists happier
    • The colonies ruled Britain
    • Britain ignored the colonies
    • British laws led to colonial protests, which led to harsher British laws

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