July 22, 2008

July 22nd is the “Pied Piper of Hamelin Day.” The Brothers Grimm documented this legend. Using resources in the classroom, learn five (5) facts about the Pied Piper and summarize them in your own words.

Let's assume this classroom has Wikipedia, in which case you can learn about a million facts, mostly boring, about the Pied Piper (Did you know there’s an Opera based on this story? Try like seven Operas).

5 Facts:

1. The kids could have been “dancing” because they had Huntington’s disease. Like the guy from Law & Order: CI. In fact, most of the theories about what happened to these kids involved all the kids getting really sad diseases.

2. Another theory has to do with something called “Dancing Mania”, which sounds awesome. (Turns out it’s also a disease.)

3. Another theory is that the children left their parents on purpose to found cities of their own and colonize Europe. What? No.

4. A guy named James Finn Garner wrote a modern day version of the Pied Piper “that satirizes anti-capitalism.” Why would he do that?

5. “In an episode of Garfield and Friends, Garfield takes the role of the piper. Instead of children being taken away, Garfield takes away all the Italian chefs in the village.” Best fact.