Christmas Secret Decoder Wheel – Free Printable

Do your kids love playing detective? solving mysteries? and cracking clues? If so, they’ll love this Christmas secret decoder wheel and the free mystery printables I’ve created!

My kids love everything related to detectives – especially solving puzzles and secret codes. Earlier this year we needed to use a decoder wheel for the first time while trying to solve the mystery puzzle in the book “The Eleventh Hour”. This book was fascinating and our whole family was engrossed for a week straight trying to solve it. This was our first time using a decoder wheel and it was a lot of fun to use. I thought it would be nice to use a decoder wheel again – this time to solve a Christmas mystery!

We are gifting my son a new set of mystery story books this year for Christmas and I figured what better way to gift them then to hide them! I created a little mystery file folder that will be under the Christmas tree. He’ll need to use the Christmas decoder wheel from inside the folder to solve the riddle in order to find his gift!

The setup for this is so incredibly easy! Print the free printables and assemble the Christmas decoder wheel using a brad. The riddle will lead your child to under the kitchen or dining room table – whatever table you eat at the most – so don’t forget to hide the gift under there!

Here is the riddle they will solve using the decoder wheel:

Fun right? I know my kids will love it. You can create this same game for your kiddos with the free printables you’ll find at the end of this post :)

Supplies Needed:

• Free printables located at the end of this post in blue
• White cardstock – I used 110lb white card stock
• Brad
• File folder
• Paper clips – regular or red and green
• Paper trimmer and/or scissors

Print the free printables and cut everything out. I used a paper trimmer to trim the rectangle pieces and a scissors to cut out the two wheels of the decoder. Carefully poke a hole in the center of both wheels. Layer them with the green one on top and attach them with a brad.

Place the riddle/puzzle they need to solve along with the decoder wheel inside the manilla folder. Paper clip the paper describing the mystery to the outside of the folder. Hide the gift they’ll be searching for under the table where you eat the most and you’re all done! Enjoy a Christmas morning coffee while your kiddos solve the Case of the Missing Present! :)

Here are some of our favorite detective books and mystery puzzles! We are always looking for more series and books so please let me know if you have any favorites not pictured!