Mrs. Murphy's Mailbox: It's No Secret ~ Puzzle Post is Awesome!!

When I was a kid I loved spies, codes and secret messages. I would write encrypted letters to my cousins and anxiously await their secretive replies! Nothing like breaking a code to get to the good stuff of a letter! It just adds to the excitement! The memories of sending and receiving these coded messages from my youth inspired me to make and send some puzzle mail today! For a sure fire success send your puzzle letter to a kid, but I think adult pen pals would enjoy some mail like this, too! I would, anyway!

Here are a few ideas I added to my Snail Mail idea book:

Picture Puzzle ~ An easy, but fun puzzle letter to send is a picture or image puzzle. Write your letter on the back of a printed or handcrafted image. After your letter is completed, cut up the image into puzzle pieces and place into an envelope to mail to your puzzle loving pen pal. Your recipient will have to piece the image together to read your letter!

Rebus ~ Nothing says "fun" like a rebus!! I used to love these as a kid. Figuring out a rebus puzzle is most amusing and making one takes a lot of creativity!! A rebus is a representation of a word by pictures or symbols. To write a rebus letter simply replace some words (or partial words) with pictures. You don't have to be a world class artist to make a rebus. Simple figures are best. Here's an example:

Cipher ~ Create a cipher wheel for you and your pen pal. A cipher wheel is basically two concentric circles divided into segments. Each segment is assigned a letter. To encode something one simply turns the wheel. Each letter on the outer circle is paired up with a replacement letter on the inner circle. Write your message using the replacement letters. Be sure your recipient has an identical wheel and knows the key letter combination. (Ex: A=K The recipient turns his wheel so A on the outer wheel lines up with K on the inner wheel and uses that wheel alignment to break the rest of the code.) Here's an awesome wheel I got from Top Spy Secrets (A fun website for kids...and those who are young at heart!)