Melissa and Doug Magnet Letters

I've had a bit of curriculum envy this week. I mean, The Ordinary Parent's Guide for Teaching Reading is the most cost effective phonics program in existence, taking a child to a 4th grade reading level for about $20 on Amazon, but my artistic daughter has been very grumpy about reading the pages with no illustrations or color.
Fat Cat Phonics is all cuteness and color, but the starter kit is $200. Ouch. All About Spelling is closer to our price range, being $30 for level one, plus the interactive kit (which you use for all levels). But I'm not quite sure; and, anyway, our budget is spoken for this pay period.
So it's back to whatever I do when the budget trumps an otherwise good idea: use what I have, just more creatively.
I pulled out the old Melissa and Doug magnet letters and arranged them alphabetically on a magnet whiteboard I got at Wal-mart a year ago. Then I turned to lesson 89 in OPG to see which words they used to teach the vowel team "ee." With marker, I wrote two Es on the board. After I reminded Mia what "ee" says, I told her to make it say "see," then "seed." It was a great big colorful hit. After we had gone through the word list, I opened Dr. Seuss's Hop on Pop to the "SEE BEE" pages. She breezed through that cheerfully and we were done for the day.