Subscribe

5th grade · Social Studies · Unit 3 of 13

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.

Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) teks student expectation: 5.2(A); 5.2(B) · taxation after the French and Indian War, colonists' responses and the Sons of Liberty

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 Texas

In the Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS), this is unit 3 of 13 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: Texas Education Agency (TEA)

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

    What was a boycott in colonial times?

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

  2. Question 2

    Who wrote the pamphlet Common Sense (1776), which argued for independence?

    • King George III
    • Thomas Paine
    • Benedict Arnold
    • John Rolfe

  3. Question 3

    In 1774, Thomas Jefferson wrote that Parliament…

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

  4. Question 4

    Why might a colonial farmer in debt to British merchants support the Patriots?

    • He was a British soldier
    • He loved the Stamp Act
    • Independence might free him from British rules and taxes
    • He wanted more British taxes

  5. Question 5

    Patrick Henry is remembered for saying…

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

  6. Question 6

    The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed…

    • Horses
    • Printed paper such as newspapers and legal documents
    • Only tea
    • Only sugar

More 5th grade