Learning Resources Alphabet Soup Sorters - 208 Pieces, Ages 3+, Early Phonics Manipulatives, ABCs, Alphabet Awareness & Recognition, Alphabet Soup Games

Our autistic toddler thrives with learning toys featuring numbers and letters, and stayed engaged with this for about an hour at first use (and lengthy durations in the next week after)! Each can has several images and the letter itself in both uppercase and lowercase format. All contents are sturdy material that we expect to last a while. Would have preferred that everything not be wrapped individually in the cans, but that is a minor complaint in the ease of first use and environmentalism. Overall great buy for those looking for alphabet learning in a fun and engaging way.

We splurged on this last year for a xmas gift and use these with our children as a "special toy" that we bring down. They really enjoy them and have lots of fun looking at the items and taking the pictures in and out of the can. Our daughter is learning to sort and sight read with these already. They are 2 1/2 and 1 1/2 and I know we have many more years of fun with these cans. We are very happy with the purchase! Don't think I will ever just give them free reign of all the cans to make a big mess, but great activity toy to sit and work on together. UPDATE OCT 2013 We STILL love & use these cans and keep them on top of the fridge in the kitchen. Each morning at breakfast, we take out one can as a letter of the day. This has been awesome toy and tool for learning letters and sound each letter makes. The kids also play with the cans as we are getting dinner on the table. This toy has been a great teaching tool and worth the price!

So glad I tried this toy despite the mixed reviews. My set was perfect. One of each letter. All canisters opened and closed. Proper letters in each. People complained that items didn’t fit in cans. All do- they come in the cans. The only item that I had to turn to fit was the umbrella in the U can. My only criticism is only one letter- X. It’s the only letter where the items/pictures included don’t all start with the letter. They highlight the x in the word but in 3 of the 5 it’s not the first letter. Example. Xylophone - great. Exit - really not a great example of an X word. I also like that there’s room in each can still. You can add little figures or more picture cards if you want. Overall I feel this is a fabulous learning tool!

I recently pulled these out of the garage to start working on letter sounds with my youngest (just turned 4) and originally bought them 3 years ago for doing the same with my oldest when she was 3. Both love the activity and caught on very quickly. I had tried talking to her about letter sounds before but it clearly didn't click. Five minutes of this game and she became a phonics whiz. The product is of great quality - yes it is cardboard, but a very sturdy variety and well coated. Most pieces still look pristine, and even when you jam it in the can forcefully (as my daughter sometimes does - the concept of turning the piece to fit is not quite there) :) they do not bend or break. The items are easily recognizable to a child and rarely cause confusion about meaning. The only two we have problems with are ape and gift. My daughter keeps wanting to label these gorilla and present, respectively, and then misclassifies. As an aside, the vowel cans include both long and short vowel sounds, which is a sticking point for my daughter right now but ultimately a good thing. I would love to see a set of vowel cans that sort long and short sounds for more clarity. One other issue that may be a problem for some it the size. The individual cans and contents are fine, but in aggregate they take up a lot of space. I have an entire shelf dedicated to these, so if you are short on space plan accordingly.

This is a great learning tool. Sometimes the items would get stuck in the bottom of the can because of the shapes and sizes but overall it was good. My toddler learned quickly that the answers were on the back of the cards

These are a great teaching tool for my preschooler! Better quality then expected bright beautiful cards, and seem to be holding up well to my daughter open and closing ext., with them a bunch more times then needed! I think we will get alot of use out of them and they will last a while (granted we use them more as a learning tool then a toy) and a great size for little hands (we store them in the original box right now since they are the size of a regular can a soup!) Do to alot of reviewers as soon as I opened the boxed I checked to make sure all the letter cans were there and they where! :) Bottom line, we are extremely satisfied with the Learning resources alphabet soup cans and would definitely recommend to others!

I have read some horror stories in these reviews, and I am sorry those things happened. However, my experience with this product is that they are durable, accurate, and most definitely worth the buy. I am so glad I didn't use the reviews to aid my decision not to purchase (I almost did). Originally, I decided on these because I really wanted to buy the alphabet tubs from Lakeshore Learning, but they were too expensive for my then budget. I am actually glad I did buy these instead, even though they were cheaper, because they work for what I need them for, and I absolutely love the soup cans (so nostalgic). There are a couple that fits a little too snug when turning them a certain way, but when turning them a different way, it fits perfectly.

I bought this for my kindergarten classroom, I use these during small group literacy lessons.. The cans are sturdy and the pictures are very bright..