Using Coded Messages

An Underground Railroad Activity

Classroom

Using actual code words once used in the Underground Railroad, students will create a coded song or nursery rhyme using a familiar song’s tune.

Materials:

Copies of original nursery rhymes and song books

Paper and pencil

List of code words

Example:

Three Large Bundles

(using tune of Three Blind Mice)

Three large bundles, three large bundles,

See how they move! See how they move!

They all float down the river y’all

To the house that has the big stone wall

Did you ever see such a wonderful haul

As three large bundles?

 

 

Some coded words and phrases from the Underground Railroad