Free Elsa - Locks and Keys Activity

My son is currently obsessed with locks and keys.  In this activity I wanted to combine his fascination with unlocking things with his interest in Frozen.  

I searched the internet for images of Princess Elsa and printed one off, laminating it to make sure the image didn't tear easily.  I used an A4 sheet of cardboard (the backing to an A4 paper pad) and placed the image of Elsa in the middle and made a total of 10 holes in the cardboard or on the edge of Elsa's picture by using either a hole punch (if it would reach) or a metal skewer.  I cut off 5 pieces of jewellery chain and fed one end of each chain through one of the holes and around the back of the card, before pulling each chain through the second hole.  I gathered both ends of each chain and locked them with a padlock.  Once I positioned Elsa correctly, I unlocked all of her chains and created the background.

What we used:

A4 sheet of cardboard

Image of Princess Elsa

Laminator 

5 Locks and keys

Black marker pen

I introduced the game to Wugs this morning, showing him how the keys fit into the locks and how the lock releases the chains.  He matched up the red key with the red lock and the pink key with the pink lock and even managed to undo the red lock, which wasn't all that easy (some of the locks were pretty fiddly).  Where the keys and their matching locks were of different colours, he wasn't able to match them, so the game might take a few weeks or months for him to master.  It certainly helped him stay focused and work on fine motor skills such as precision, as well as matching and problem-solving (including the patience that goes with that).