Back to Room Mentor Mentor's Page for Mary Queen of Scots Students will need to print off the page with the cipher wheels on it. Have them cut out both wheels and attach the smaller wheel on top of the larger one. Students can use a pen or pencil or other fastener through the center of both wheels to connect them. When fastened, both wheels should still be able to be moved independent of each other. Set up the cipher wheels for this activity by lining up character B on the outside wheel with g on the inside, small wheel.
Students are now ready to decipher the activity message.
To recover the message, for every symbol in the ciphered text, have students substitute the matching letter on the outer circle. As a follow on activity, the students can set the cipher wheels to another setting and make up their own messages for friends to decipher. In this case, write the message to be enciphered. Then substitute the corresponding symbol for each letter in the message. For more fun, students can make up 26 new symbols of their choice and create their own inner wheel.