Letter Cake

The letter cake is designed to go with the Dr Jean song Happy Birthday Letters which is on her Totally Reading CD (http://www.drjean.org/). The song goes "Hey A it's your birthday, let's all sing like your birthday /a/ /a/ /a/ /a/ /a/ /a/. " The /a /sound is made to the tune of Happy Birthday to You. The letter tube would serve as the candle on the cake

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How I made this: The cake is a round gift box that I bought at Walgreen's during the after Christmas sale. The "candles" have 2 parts. First I put some large craft sticks into a clump of self drying clay. I molded the bottom of the clay so that it would sit flat and glued the craft sticks into the molded clay for stability.( I glued them after the clay had dried) Next I put a shiny sticker on the top of the craft stick to serve as a flame. I made three of these. Then I spray painted 26 toilet paper tubes gold. ( The gold spray paint was left over from our school's Christmas play. I put all the tubes in a cardboard box while I spray painted them to hold them still. The box also kept paint from landing anywhere other than the tubes and the box. I wore safety goggles and a dust mask while painting because it is not good to get paint in your eyes or lungs). I wrote each letter (capital and lowercase) on a white circular label. I put both the capital and lowercase letter on the same tube and secured the labels with clear packing tape. I used sticky tack to secure one or more of the craft stick holders onto the lid of the box. Now I can put one letter on the cake when we focus on that letter and sound, or I can put 3 letters on the cake to make a word. I can store the letters I want the students to use for word making inside the box to make it an independent game.