Tell Me the Stories of Jesus - Crack the Code

This fun logical activity will quickly grab the attention of those reluctant logical thinkers as they will eagerly jump in to help you crack the code!

I’ll be reviewing Tell Me the Stories of Jesus one week with this fun crack the code game that is perfect for Senior Primary but maybe surprisingly will work great in Junior Primary, too!

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Tell Me the Stories of Jesus
Crack the Code

How to Play:

I like to start by singing through the song once before we start a new activity. Simply sing through the song, then show them the code.
- Ask if they think they can figure out this code. What do they think the symbols might mean? What do they notice?
- Pattern repeats, three colors, it always ends with the swiggle, etc.

Sing through the song again asking them to watch for any patterns.
- What did they notice? What might the dots represent? If they give the right answer, say lets sing through and see if that fits!
- If not, let’s try singing through again. Point along to help them follow the code the second time if they didn’t pick up on any patterns the first time through.

After cracking the code, sing through only the dots, then only the dashes, then finally only the swiggles.
For a challenge: sing the first like with only the dots, second line with only the dashes, third like with only the swiggle, and the final line sing all the way through!

Code Key:

Each note of the song is represented by one of the following symbols. The song has 6 beats per measure.

. (dot) = Short note = 1 beat (6 beats per measure)

– (dash) = Medium note = 2-3 beats (generally 2 notes each measure)

~ (swiggle) = Long note = 6 beats (whole note)

How Crack the Code
Went in My Primary!

I did this lesson plan this past week and it was a slam dunk!! The Junior Primary loved it and were glued to the activity. I thought that was a success! But my Senior Primary blew me away. They were begging to sing the song again and again.

One great suggestion they had, which I loved, was having one side of the room sing the Blue dot words, one side sing the Green dash words, and the teachers sing the Orange Swiggle words! It was a wonderful suggestion and lesson extension!!

I loved hearing all of Senior Primary’s ideas for what the code might have been. I heard a lot of suggestions like:

The blue “Crack” title letters might match the blue dots in the puzzle. So the dots might be a C or an R or an A. I thought that was SO clever!! What a good idea for a future puzzle!
One child thought the dots might spell out he words… “T-E-L-L…” so we tested that, hm.. that won’t quite fit.
They thought I was writing in morse code!!
Some thought maybe it was the melody of the notes how high or low they were.
A few guessed maybe the dots were “full” words and the green dashes were split words. So we checked them.. hm… nope stor-ies seems to be split across 2 blue dots. What else could it be? 🙂

It was so fascinating to hear their ideas! Eventually, the got it and they had SO much fun with this Crack the Code game! I highly recommend it!!

Crack the Code in Action!

If you’re looking for more help with this lesson plan, I created a quick video for the few that were having trouble still understanding how to run this lesson. Since there is only so much I can write in text to explain it, I thought I’d just show you how I lead the activity in a quick video – so here you go!

If for any reason this video won’t load for you, you can also see it over here on my YouTube channel!

Tell Me the Stories of Jesus
Crack the Code Printable

This Tell Me the Stories of Jesus Crack the Code activity is one you can easily print and post up on the whiteboard to show off the code or keep the printable in front of you, and draw the dots and dashes up on the whiteboard for a fun change of pace!