Tea Party

The headlines in the news recently have really caught the kids' attention- they especially wanted to know what all the fuss was over the recent TEA parties. I decided to take advantage of the glories of homeschooling and have a unit study. We got out my favorite nice dishes and the tea pot and set a pretty table. I made some very yummy finger food and we settled in. I thought I would teach them a little history about the original tea parties and then correlate it to current events and explain that many people were feeling that there was too much of their money being spent without having a say in the matter. Well, I saw it going much differently in my mind. I really saw them marveling at the way our government was established and delighting in the freedom we have to peacefully disagree with the powers that be and so on. I think they were more interested in the grub. The girls were saavy enough to feign interest anyway. I was rather disappointed! We cleaned up and put the things away and with a sigh I closed the book and started planning how I might teach them about the freedoms they seemed to take so lightly. As it turned out, I neither had to plan nor teach anything- the opportunity presented itself as the kids were working on their Lego city. When it comes to their Lego city, Dramagirl has all of the makings of a great crooked politician- especially the love of power part. She always somehow manages to put herself in a position where others have to pay her (they have created their own Lego currency even) and for whatever reason they all go along with it. This time however she overstepped her bounds and it was on! She set herself up as the police and then told everyone that she required payment from them all to pay for their protection. She matter-of-factly explained something along the lines that taxes were a necessary evil for living in society. Buster had enough. He got very riled and protested "No way! I'm not paying you any more taxes!! T-E-A! Taxed Enough Already! You can't have any more of my money!" Ok, so maybe they were paying more attention than I thought!