The Boston Tea Party: Classroom Resources

On November 29, 1773, in an act of defiance against the British taxes, a group of colonists in disguise snuck aboard three ships and dumped tea into the ocean. The colonists had only been allowed to buy tea from one company, and the taxes were expensive. This act of defiance was a cause of tension between the colonies and England.

Here are some links to assist in research of The Boston Tea Party:

• Overview of the Boston Tea Party: A short overview of the event at ducksters.com.
• Boston Tea Party Online Activity: This high quality presentation at havefunwithhistory.com gives a pretty detailed overview of the Tea Party.
• The Events of Boston in 1774: This nice little informational piece in the style of a newspaper from the time period gives information on both the Tea Party and the Boston Massacre. This is within the Liberty! materials on PBS.org.
• Boston Tea Party Facts at bostonteapartyship.com: Good information on the different aspects of the Tea Party.
• The Boston Tea Party Photos: Some great photo galleries can be found at the Boston Tea Party Historical Society, at Shmoop, and this high quality Glogster page.

Teacher Resources:

• Here are some links to a few worksheets in pdf format that may be useful in a grade 3-5 classroom:
• All About the Boston Tea Party: A simple and easy two page worksheet with questions after.
• Teaching Guide Collection of Activities: Provided by PBS.org, there are a few high quality activities, the ones that interest me are the ones where students are asked to analyze paintings depicting events of that day.
• Causes of the American Revolution packet: A packet with a nice readers theater piece (pages 13-17), a handout on the Boston Tea Party (pages 18-19), and a list of unit vocabulary (page 23). Provided by huntington.org. 
• One paragraph about the Boston Tea Party: This might be usable in reading class. 

Video Clips:

This first clip is from the 1957 Disney movie Johnny Tremain. What I like about it is that it's short, and gives a decent overview of the actual dumping of the tea in about 6 minutes.

This next clip is from the amazing series America: The Story of Us. This clip is about the Tea Party.