I saw a homemade mailbox to teach letters idea on Pinterest and tweaked it to work for us.

I covered a diaper box with brown paper(it looked...not Pinterest worthy) and cut a whole in it large enough for an envelope.  I dug through my to shred pile and found stacks of junk mail.  Luckily I have procrastinated that task for awhile.  I gave Will a bag and some mail and told him to deliver it, which he did and loved it.

 He played with that while I used index cards and blank envelopes to write the letters on.  Uppercase on the envelope and lowercase on the index card.  I spread out all the index cards and held up one envelope at a time, asking which index card would match it and go in the envelope. He picked out the cards and stuffed the envelopes.

 I pretended to be a matching machine and if he got it wrong or right, I made funny noises.  He was on the floor laughing at times! He picked out the cards and stuffed the envelopes.  He did great!  He knew almost all of the letters and many of the sounds.  D, M, N, U, and W are the ones that need the most work.

He had the most fun playing that game and his own made up games for over an hour!

We've read

Cinderella by Ky Craft
Wooly Mammoth Helen Frost
Meet the Mammoth Vivian French
Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland Tomie de Paola
The Flopsy Bunnies (but not with Beatrix Potter's illustrations, so I'm taking that one back to the library and see if I can find it the right way.)
Sleepytime Rhyme Remy Charlip
The Elves and the Shoemaker by Bernadette Watts
Mammoths on the Move Lisa Wheeler
I Will Surprise My Friend Mo Willems