Mummy's Little Sunflowers - Story Snug
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Celebrating Earth Day with Mummy’s Little Sunflowers by Angela McAllister & Alison Edgson

Happy Earth Day! We planted sunflowers and talked about planting flowers to attract bees as we’re concerned about the decline in the bee population. If you’re planning to plant sunflowers, Mummy’s Little Sunflowers is a lovely story which shows that you need patience when you plant seeds!

The Story: Scurry brings a sunflower seed home from nursery but next morning he’s cross when he finds that little brother Scamp has eaten most of it. Blackbird tells them there are lots of sunflowers in the lane and Cow lifts them up so they can collect some seeds. They get very messy planting their seeds and after dinner Scamp is very upset that they haven’t already grown. Scurry takes Scamp upstairs where they prepare a special sunflower surprise for Mummy.

Mummy’s Little Sunflowers shows a lovely relationship between the two siblings, Scurry is the caring, sensible older brother in comparison to impetuous Scamp. Scurry looks after Scamp when he falls over, explains the difference between a dandelion and a sunflower and shows caution when Scamp asks Cow for help. He also consoles Scamp with a sunflower activity when the sunflowers haven’t grown.

The text in Mummy’s Little Sunflowers is easy to read and the illustrations are beautiful. The little mice are very cute and Cow is gentle and kind despite Scurry’s initial fears that she might squash them. The double page spread showing a sea of sunflowers is wonderful and includes bees which helped to stimulate our discussion about how important bees are. My daughter’s favourite page shows the two little mice looking muddy after their planting session, their red wellingtons are adorable!

Mummy’s Little Sunflowers is the perfect story for this time of year and children will easily identify with the actions and emotions of the two little mice.

Age Range: 3 +

Author: Angela McAllister / Illustrator: Alison Edgson

We decorated flowerpots for our sunflower plants. First we soaked terracotta pots in water before painting them using acrylic paints. My daughter wanted to paint one with flowers, for the second flowerpot we put drops of paint at the top and let them run down but we had most fun with the third one. We used cocktail sticks to spread out blobs of paint so they looked like splats of paint. Finally we sealed the paint with an acrylic spray. It’s an easy, enjoyable craft which I have often done in school and is also a lovely activity for a birthday party. The sunflower plants would make a great present for Mothers’ Day which is celebrated in many countries on May 10th. Hopefully our sunflowers will have grown a little bit by then!

Flowerpots - Mummy's Little Sunflowers - Story Snug

We also made crepe paper sunflowers to enjoy while we’re waiting for ours to grow. First we cut out yellow crepe paper petals and stuck them onto a circle of brown card. Then we stuck another circle on the back to secure them. We sprinkled tealeaves onto the circles to give a fantastic pollen effect before adding a green pipe cleaner for the stalk. My daughter was so inspired by the activity that she also made a daisy using white feathers and yellow craft foam.

Craft Sunflowers- Mummy's Little Sunflowers - Story Snug

Do you have any favourite stories that you read on Earth Day? We would love to hear about them in the comments.

Thank you to Antonia Wilkinson for sending us a copy of Mummy’s Little Sunflowers. We love the story and the activities and discussions that it stimulated.


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14 responses to “Celebrating Earth Day with Mummy’s Little Sunflowers by Angela McAllister & Alison Edgson”


  1. Debs @ Super Busy Mum avatar

    Aww this is so lovely and those wee plant pots look delightful. Thanks for linking up! #MMWBH


    1. Catherine avatar

      We are still waiting to see if anything will grow in our plant pots. I’m sure that the sunflowers that we have planted in the past have grown quicker than this!


  2. AJ @ Aspen Jay avatar

    What a cute book and fun project to make for earth day!


    1. Catherine avatar

      It was fun but nothing is growing yet 🙁


  3. Sian avatar

    This looks fab! We’ve just planted sunflower seeds. I’m new to your blog but it looks like a great source of book buying inspiration!


    1. Catherine avatar

      Thanks Sian, hopefully our recommendations are helpful. Good luck with the sunflower growing 🙂


  4. kidGLloves avatar

    Lucas says – These are AWESOME. The Mother loves Sunflowers and one year we had 20 of them in our garden. But with these, you can have Sunflowers all year round – High-5’s!!
    Thanks for linking to #minicreations


    1. Catherine avatar

      We enlarged one of our sunflower photographs so now we have sunflowers all year round in our kitchen 🙂


  5. Lisa (mummascribbles) avatar

    Those pots are amazing – I love them! This looks like such a cute book 🙂 #weekendbloghop


    1. Catherine Friess avatar

      Thank you, we had fun making them! I hope the sunflowers like them 🙂


  6. Merlinda Little ( @pixiedusk) avatar

    I am so guilty of not talking about my son about Earth Day and maybe I will this afternoon. We planted seeds and we are sharing them with the bees he said so I think we are still in the right path. #pocolo


    1. Catherine avatar

      There are so many things to talk to our children about! It seems that your son is on the right track with his thinking, we must look after our bees 🙂


  7. Karen Bell avatar

    Oh I love those flower pots! #MiniCreations


    1. Catherine avatar

      We had a lot of fun painting the flowerpots. I’ve just bought more paint so we can make more, we need to practise our paint dripping technique!!