Twirly Whirly Flyers

Twirly Whirly Flyers from Ni Hao Kai-lan

What You Need:
Colored card stock (OR white card stock and markers OR paper plate and markers)
Pencil
Flower shaped cookie cutter (or you can just draw the flower)
Scissors
Drinking straw (1 per flower)
Brass fastener (1 per flower)
Glue (Elmer's School Glue or Tacky Glue)
Tape
Dot sticker (optional)

What to do:
This starts out very easy.  Trace or draw a flower on the card stock color of your choice.  (They always play with red and green on the show, so that's what I did).  Cut out the flower.  Poke a hole in the center with the pencil.  (a hole punch hole will be too big, and it probably won't reach anyway).

The next part is trickier.  Put a dollop of glue in the center of the flower over the hole.  Push the brass fastener into the glue and through the hole.  The top of the fastener should catch and it shouldn't go all the way through the hole.

Next, squeeze some glue into the straw.  If you are using a bendy straw, use the straight end.  I actually trimmed mine down and cut off the bend once it was assembled.  Now pull the prongs of the fastener apart a little and insert them into the straw (the end with the glue!).

I then turned it upside down and placed it on a flat service to dry.  I also put a little masking tape on it to reinforce it because I wasn't sure the glue would hold the fastener inside the straw on its own. 

Voila!  Once its dry, you can play with them.  I found I could fly them much better by spinning them between just my thumb and forefinger, versus between both hands like on the show.  But kids with small hands will probably want to mimic Kai-lan.  My daughter had fun with these immediately even though she couldn't make them fly.