The Sunflower Sword

I came across "The Sunflower Sword" at our local library when I was looking for books for letter S week, and boy, am I glad I did!  Have you ever come across a book that was just perfect?  This was that book for us. 

"The Sunflower Sword" is the story of a little boy who lives in a land filled with knights and dragons and endless fighting, who longs to be a brave knight too.  His mother tells him he can't and when he asks for a sword, she gives him a sunflower instead.  The little boy plays 'knight' with his sunflower sword when he comes across a real dragon.  The dragon assumes that the sunflower is a gift from the little boy and so, they become good friends who "played much better games than fighting," and peace spread across the land.  SUCH a wonderful story!

Little Guy is sort of in love with knights.  We are constantly doing these little impromptu story telling sessions, and they usually contain knights and dragons, so this was great for him.  But, you certainly can't read this story without wanting a sunflower sword of your own, so I rummaged up some supplies and we made some swords!

Here's what we used:

We set to work painting the tubes green and the plates yellow.

Next, we painted glue on the centers of our plates and sprinkled them with sunflower seeds (with a few lost to Little Guy's mouth).

Then I poked a hole into the center of the plate and tube, and inserted a brad.

And....voila!!  A sunflower sword!  Little Guy told me he needed a colander to go with it (well, he didn't actually say "colander,"  but I knew what kind of hat he was talking about.)

*I would definitely whoosh your sword outside though, because I was finding seeds here and there for a couple of days after this project!