A present is nicer when you have to earn it. The Cipher Wheel Gift Hunt is a printable treasure hunt that turns any present into an adventure: Cashew the chipmunk has hidden the gift and written every hiding place in picture code.
One clue, three moves
- Solve. Each clue card has a puzzle. Its answer is the KEY, a number from 1 to 26.
- Set the wheel. Turn the small wheel until the gift picture points at the KEY.
- Decode and search. Each picture now points at a letter and together they spell where the next card is hiding. A wrong KEY turns the code into gibberish, so every answer checks itself.
Three trails in one kit
- Ribbon Trail, ages 6 to 8: 8 clues, adding and taking away, about 30 to 45 minutes.
- Bow Trail, ages 9 to 12: 10 clues, times tables and trickier logic, about 45 to 60 minutes.
- Gold Seal Trail, ages 13 to adult: 12 clues, a puzzle evening for teens and grown-ups, about 50 to 75 minutes.
There are 30 clue puzzles in 15 kinds: ten kinds of math pyramid and five more, including a picture sudoku, a word search and a who-wrapped-what logic grid. Every clue offers two hiding places, A and B, that decode with the same KEY, so you can tick the one that suits your home.
Games mentioned
Cipher Wheel Gift Hunt
A printable treasure hunt with a cut-out decoder wheel: three trails from ages 6-8 to teens and adults, and 30 clue puzzles.
See it on EtsyDesigned by Creouts Publishing using original prompts and AI (Claude by Anthropic). Illustrations made with AI image tools. Digital download: nothing is shipped.
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