Knight Party: Sword in a Stone Game

What would a knight party be without swords?  I found ours discounted on-line, but wouldn't you know it, I saw shorter versions at Target's $1 aisle a couple weeks ago. Grrr!

Instead of just handing the swords out to the knights, I put them in a "stone" that I made from the box the swords were shipped in.  I used a sponge to give it a rock like look.  The kids didn't seem to care if it mostly still looked like a cardboard box.  They really roll with it when you get their imaginations going!

I told them the story of Merlin and the sword in the stone and challenged them to see if they could become king by pulling the swords out.  Of course they could, and I gave them a merlin finger puppet to help remember the story.

My original plan was to hide the stone and leave out 3 linking clues from Merlin to lead the knights to the stone.  However, I ran out of time and the weather kept us indoors... not many places to hide the big stone with all the other activities going on. In the end, pulling the swords out was enough for them... they couldn't wait for action!

As for ACTION.... The weather did eventually clear, so I first let the kids try out the swords as boys do, against each other. They had great fun chasing each other and employing their shields and helmets.  When the excitement notched down a bit, I brought out red/yellow/blue balloons for the boys to target. This was a GREAT idea..they would have continued for dozens of balloons, I'm sure.  It was a relief for everyone to focus their energy on the balloons instead of each other!