Letters Match-Up Bucket

So, the more I write on this blog, the more I really do think I am a hoarder. However, for right now I'm going to call it "Resourceful Recycling". Throughout the Easter season (better known as the end of candy season in our house) my family ate massive amounts of cotton candy. We bought and ate close to 18 tubs of the stuff. Now, the "Resourceful Recycler" in me said - Don't throw those tubs away, you can use them for something, sometime. Well, I gave about 9 of them to the music teacher for their recycled instrument project but 9 still sat in the house screaming to be used. I decided to turn them into letter matching tubs of fun!

I was thinking of giving these out in the morning to the students who needed practice identifying which lowercase letters go with which uppercase letters. Once they are done, they just put all the pieces inside the tub and close the lid. It was super easy to make. Check it out:

Materials: 

1 tub (I used a cotton candy tub but I'm sure you could use another tub)

1 piece of felt

1 strip of sticky velcro (the hook side, not the fuzzy side)

letters sheet - laminated (for durability) and cut out - FREE HERE

1 piece of ribbon (if you want to be fancy)
a hot glue gun and glue

1. First, measure the felt around your tub. If it is not long enough, cut a small strip off of the bottom to fill in the gap. 

2. Hot glue the felt onto the tub. I prefer high temp hot glue but regular should work too. Let it cool for a second and then press the felt around the tub to make sure it is secure.

(If you want to be fancy, you can hot glue a piece of ribbon to the top and/or bottom of the felt to make you tub have a more finished look.)

3. Hot glue the letters around the tub. You could do all uppercase, all lowercase, or a mix. Push the letters while the glue is still warm to make sure it stays. (Let's pretend those are shadows on my carpet.)

4. Cut the velcro into small rectangles and place on the back of the remaining letters. 

5. Finished tub! Have the students take the letters out of the tub, match them to the corresponding letter and then put them back inside of the tub for safe keeping! Here is the link for letter cards again:
FREE LETTER CARDS

I think my students will really like this and it will be easy to store all of the pieces. Let me know what you think!

-OneCrazyS