Father's Day Secret Code with Decoder Heart

By Deborah Pace Rowley

This is a simple and fun Father's Day craft that I did with nine 11-year-old girls. It was simple and easy and cost only about $1.00 per girl. This would be a great activity to do with a Sunday School class or play group or just with your own kids before Father's Day. Here are the supplies you need:

A Brown Paper Sack
Some red cellophane (I found red cellophane bags at Walmart that we cut apart)
A heart shaped cookie cutter or heart template
Glue Stick
Scissors
Assorted Ribbon
White and Black Cardstock
Red and Blue Crayons
Goodies to put inside the finished sack along with the code key

We started out by tracing around the cookie cutter on the brown paper sack.

Then the girls cut out the heart shape.

 and glued the red cellophane into the inside of the sack to cover the heart-shaped cut-out.

Now you can fill your sack with goodies and start on the secret code. We drew symbols for each of the letters of the alphabet.

You can print a copy of our secret code alphabet here.
Then the girls wrote a message to their dads in secret code. Some of the messages were:
You are awesome.
I am so glad you are my Dad.
I am crazy about you.
You make me laugh.
and my personal favorite: I wouldn't trade you for pizza.
The girls wrote the message on a white piece of card stock and glued black card stock to the back.
Now we had to create the secret decoder key.
The girls wrote the code key in blue crayon.

Then they scribbled all over the code in red crayon. We found that using circular scribbling motions covered the blue crayon best.

Next they put this magic decoder inside the bag with their treats.  

Here is a message written in blue crayon covered by the red scribbling. 

Look how it is revealed as you put it under the red cellophane. 

 The last step was to staple the top of the bag closed and add a few bits of ribbon for decoration. 

We were done! 

Now Dad will have to use the red cellophane heart as a super cool decoder to read the code key and decipher the message. The girls were so excited to let their dads try this out. I hope that they wait until Father's Day to give their Dads this gift!