“Have a safe summer”, “See you next year”, “Don’t forget to practice your multiplication tables!”  These along with many goodbye hugs are the send-off messages teachers and principals use on the last day of school.  By the time children are in the third grade, they can easily finish these farewell messages for you.

Students LOVE solving alpha-numeric codes!  My latest FREEBIE combines end-of-the-year expressions with alpha-numeric codes.  These can be used with grades first through third.

End of the School Year Messages

Here’s how it works.  Students are given an alpha-numeric key.  The letters from the year-end message are included in the key.  A letter is used once in the key regardless of how many times it is used within the message.  Then, the letters are assigned numerals.  One numeral is positioned above each letter.

Read Lots of Books!

Blank lines are printed below the key.  There is one blank line for every letter within the message.  Blank lines are grouped together to spell one word.  Space is placed between groups of blank lines to separate words.

Last Day of School Send-off Messages

Students use the alpha-numeric key to find and write the appropriate letters in the blanks.

An End-of-the-Year Message!

The finished work reveals the end of the year message which the children can then read!

We want our students’ activities to be rich and meaningful.  In order for alpha-numeric decoding activities to transcend to that level, we MUST provide students with the opportunity to CREATE their own codes!  Otherwise, it’s just a fun activity without causing higher order thinking to take place.  Included with this freebie is a page where students finish writing the numerals above the designated letters.  The numerals can be written in random order or a number pattern such as skip counting could be used.  Then, they write the numerals below the blanks to create the coded message.  They trade papers with a classmate and solve the message.

Finish the Code and Plot the Message

Get your FREEBIE by clicking on the image shown below:

If you have students that are ready for the challenge of creating a coded message with little on no support, you can also grab the page shown below.  It will provide students with detailed directions on how to create a coded message.  Due to the level of difficulty, this page is not included in the file above.  If you have advanced students that are gifted in this area, they will eat this up!

Make a Coded Message

Post created by Molly McMahon, Lessons by Molly

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