Alphabet Object Boxes

The boy uses these to sort beginning sounds.  He pulls the object out of the box and places it below the glued letter inside the lid.

Materials Needed:  Dollar Tree foam letters, Walmart $.94 pencil case, glue, paint pens, and a crapload of objects from Dollar tree, Michaels, Hobby Lobby and the like.  I tried to do six per sound.  Our book (100 Easy Lessons) does the phonics in this order 

1.  The "mesa" box.  I say it MAY-suh, but it should be MEE-suh.  Anyhoodle, it's M, long E, S, and short A.

M: milk, monster, moose, makeup, monkey (ignore alligator, he belongs in the last row--quality control stinks here)

long E:  equals, easel, evil, eagle, earrings

S:  star, stapler, scissors, spoon, sea horse, school house, snake, sewing machine

A:  ambulance, antelope, ant, astronaut, apple

2.  The "dirt" box:

D: disk, dish, daisy, dragonfly, dressform (something is missing.....hmmm.  Oh, it's a dinosaur.)

short I:  insect, infant, inchworm, igloo, iguana

R:  rock, rhino, ray, record, rice, ring

T:  turtle, takeout, tree, tiger, tractor, and a missing teapot (currently serving a fore mentioned dinosaur)

*The kids don't usually use these for what they are intended, but retrieving them from the correct box and returning them to said box is kind of like sorting, right?

3.  The "CONTH", which is now the CON box since I can't find a darn thing in the word that uses the second sound of TH.  This, that, them...not very object friendly.

C:  cow, cactus, cat, crown, cookie, camel

short O:  olive, ostrich, octopus (still working on this pile)

N:  needle, necklace, nail, nickel, nuts, nail polish