Music Worksheets Code Breaker Puzzles

This resource pack comprises 10 Code Breaker Puzzles based on general musical knowledge of 10 different areas, and are designed for Key Stage 3 music students. With each puzzle expected to take students between 15 and 30 minutes to complete, they are ideal for individual homework tasks, or can be used in combination to fill at least 2 complete cover lessons.

Specifically, the puzzles are based on the following 10 themes: famous composers; instruments; popular musicals; music styles and genres; basic foreign terms (tempos, dynamics, performance directions, etc); notation (signs, symbols, elements, etc); famous classical pieces of music; famous rock and pop bands (mostly from the past); describing music (terms relating to descriptions of melody, tonality, structure, etc); Christmas Songs and Carols (for a handy, fun, and seasonal puzzle).

Students use logic and problem-solving skills to complete a code-breaker grid in which each letter has been replaced by a number. Each puzzle has a different theme and contains between 20 and 25 words, names, and/ or terms which must be found from one initial clue-word containing 4 different letters. Each time a new word is discovered, new letters are revealed, and to solve the entire puzzle students must replace every number in the grid with its corresponding letter, correctly spelling out all of the names or terms. Each of the 10 puzzles also contain a variety of shaded yellow and blue boxes, which must be unscrambled after all letters have been discovered, to reveal two final names, words, or terms related to the topic.

A full set of answers are provided so that students can self-mark and correct – especially important if you use the activities for cover as you will not want to return to a pile of marking! Additionally, a 2-page Teacher Guidance plan is included to fully explain how the code-breakers work, taking you through an example, and to provide suggestions for extension tasks and for offering extra help to students attempting to solve the puzzles.

I take great care to ensure my resources are of the highest quality – both in content and in presentation – and I wholeheartedly recommend them to both you and your students. I welcome feedback and enquiries from my colleague-customers all over the world, and I can be contacted directly at rainynightmusic@hotmail.com. I would be delighted to hear from you, and I thank you for considering this resource for your classroom.