Christmas vowel sound sorting

Have I mentioned that I love Christmas?  Here's yet another Christmas-themed educational activity that was super-easy and a ton of fun for the kids.

Here's what I put on one of our trays this morning.  

Each of the trees has a vowel on the top "a" through "u", and the stocking is full of phonics objects that I ordered from Montessori Services.

I made sure that each of the objects was a one syllable, short word with an easily identifiable middle vowel sound (ie, "jet", "tag", "nut", "pad", "bag", etc.).

The kid's goal was to sort each of the gifts under the correct tree according to the middle vowel sound.  So, "pad", "car", "tag", "bag" went under the "a" tree, "jet" went under the "e" tree, "lid" went under the "i" tree, "dog" and "pot" went under the "o", and "nut", "cup" and "mug" went under the "u" tree..