Medieval myths I: The Pied Piper of Hammelin. 6th grade A.

Hammelin, Germany.

Hamelin, Germany. 12th century. There is a plague of rats. Nobody knows how to repel them from town. The rodents are becoming a big problem: the eat people's food, they bite children, they transmit deseases...

One day a misterious flutist arrives to the town. He talks to the mayor and he promises he can take all the rats out of Hamelin. He demands 100 gold coins for the job. The mayor accepts, promising the flutist he will be paid after the job.

The flutist followed by rats.

The flutist goes to the town square and starts to play a beautiful melody with his flute. Magically, all the rats come to the square and stand quiet, looking at him and listenting to his music. Then, the flutist starts walking, and the rats follow him. They walk down the street, crossing the wall gate and going into the forest. People is amazed. ¡The rats are gone! There is a big party, and everybody is happy.

The flutist, followed by children.

One year later the flutist returns to the town, dirty and tired. He looks like if coming from a large, large journey. Everybody thanks him his labour. The flutist goes to the town hall and talks to the mayor, asking for his 100 gold coins. But the mayor... Refuses to pay him!! Very angry, the flutist leaves, promising revenge.

The kitchen of the devil.

That same day, at night, when everybody is sleeping, a mysterious melody sounds in the darkness. Nobody worried about it. "Some musician rehearsing with his instrument", they think. But next morning, when Hamelin awakes... All children have dissapeared!! People in town despair. They organize a big search, looking for their kids. But they do not appear. Finally, in the mountain of Ith, far far away, they find one of the children. He is crying, sitting on a rock. He has got a sprain on his ankle, so he cannot walk. When they ask him about the others, the children only says: "I want to go with him. With the flutist. I want to walk with him. Do you listen his beautiful music? Take me with him!!"

The citizens of Hamelin are horrified. The flutist had bewitched and kidnapped their children!! The poor one of the sprain is safe only because he couldn't follow the march. They explore the mountain several days looking for their kids, but they didn't find anything. Finally they give up, returning to the town. They never saw their beloved children again.

Mountain of Ith.

Nowadays people still say that if you go the mountain of Ith at night and you put your ear on the "kitchen of the devil", sometimes you can listen to a mysterious melody and the laughs and cries of many children...

Class stuff. 5th grade B.

Go ahead with class stuff. First the drag and drop activity:

Class stuff

This one is for refreshing concepts you already know:

Things at class

And also an Alphabetic wheel:

School stuff Alphabetic wheel: there are some words you don't know yet. Tomorrow I'll explain them to you.

Musical instruments. 6th grade A.

I have prepared this worksheet for studying the easy words related to music. Do it this weekend!

Music I. Easy worksheet.

Music II. A bit more difficult worksheet

Also Three crosswords. One of them will appear at the exam.

Crossword I

Crossword II

Crossword III

Listenings about music. 6th grade A.

Animals' exam. 5th grade B.

Here I let you all the links you need for studying tomorrow's exam:

Fast animals (text)

Animals' varied resources

Describing animals

Animals test

Tools. Alphabetic wheel. 6th grade A.

An Alphabetic wheel about tools:

Tools Alphabetic wheel

Guess the animal by the sound.

A game we will play tomorrow:

Fast animals. 5th Grade B

We all probably know that cheetah is the fastest animal on land. But there are other rapid animals in the world. Here I want to tell you about them, kingdom by kigndom:

Mammals: as you know, the fastest animal is the cheetah. It can reach 100 kilometres per hour. It lives in Africa. It hunts gazelles. It is orange and brown with many spots. It is possible to domesticate it, like a big cat.

Birds: peregrine falcon. It reaches over 300 km per hour (flying down on a prey) It is a very common animal. You can find them in natural areas; also in the cities. They make their nests on churches, towers, old buildings, cliffs, high rocks...

Reptiles: bearded dragon: 40 kilometres per hour. It lives in Australia, in the desert. It eats small insects and plants. It has got a lot of scales around its neck, like a "beard", for scaring predators.

Fish: black marlin. It reaches 129 kilometres per hour. It lives in tropical areas. It is a very big fish (it weighs 750 kg) Fishermen consider it as one of the most valuable captures they can get.

Invertebrates: the horsefly. It can fly very fast: 145 kilometres per hour. Its bite is very painful. They love to bite horses, cows, camels... and humans.



Teacher's story: when I was 17 years old a horsefly bit me on my leg. I was fishing, and I still remember my skin burning, and the big wheal which appeared on my calf. If you see one of these horseflies, scare them away... or run away.