A symbol cipher, a paper decoder wheel and a stack of coded messages to crack. This is the basket that finally kept my six-year-old at the table without a single reminder.
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Somewhere around six, my son stopped wanting activities and started wanting missions. Anything that looked like a worksheet was dead on arrival, but anything with a secret in it had his full attention.
So I printed a cipher, wrote him a message he could not read, and left it on his chair. He worked at it for forty minutes and then spent the rest of the morning writing one back to me — which is when I realised the writing was the real activity all along.
We still leave coded notes in lunchboxes. It is the cheapest trick I know for turning handwriting practice into something he asks to do.
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Print the pack. Page one is the cipher key - keep one copy for yourself and give one to your child.
Cut out both decoder wheel circles, stack the small one on the big one, and push a split pin through the centre so it spins.
Do the first message together, letter by letter, so the method clicks. It takes about five minutes.
Hand over the pre-written coded messages and step away. Resist helping - the struggle is the whole point.
When those are cracked, flip it: your child writes you a message in code and you have to solve it out loud.
Use the alphabet stamps for a message that looks properly printed and mysterious rather than handwritten.
Fold each message into a kraft envelope, draw a symbol on the flap, and hide it somewhere the other person will find it later.
Escalate: hide a coded clue that leads to a second coded clue, and end it at something small and real - a biscuit, a note, a sticker.
Secret code cards + decoder wheel (A4 PDF)
Four pages: the symbol cipher key, blank message cards, eight ready-to-crack messages, and a cut-out decoder wheel.
Alphabet rubber stamp set on Amazon
A boxed alphabet stamp set turns a coded note into something that looks like it came from an actual spy agency, and it gets used for a hundred other things afterwards.
Want more? Browse all our free printables for kids.
Print the cipher key twice - the arguments start the moment there is only one. If your child is still finding letter-by-letter decoding heavy going, write your messages in three-word sentences to start; the win matters more than the length.
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