My kids love to grab my camera and snap photos. And I often get lots (100s) of random shots of the same thing. But every once in awhile, I find an amazing photo that my child snapped. It’s so fun to see how your child sees things through the camera! Beryl Young is an amazing Momtographer and she teachers moms and their kids how to love photos (and life!). She’s even written a book to inspire the young photographers, I’m super excited to share it with you: Phoebe the Photographer: Gets a Camera (affiliate link)
But even more fun, is the fun activities Beryl plans for her kiddo. They’re activities that gets your child learning how to use the camera. So, be brave, and hand over your phone or your camera and let them have a shot at taking a shot! Pick one of these activities to capture some moments from your child’s eye.
You’ll also want to snatch up her “Click! A ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Guide For Kids With Cameras” (completely free to you) with 5 more fun photography activities you can do today with your kids.
Teaching my child photography typically involves me handing over my mobile phone, or old point-and-shoot, and watching her snap a long series of selfies, or picture-after-picture of blurry shots around the house.
She LOVES the camera, and as a photographer myself, I want to encourage her to take pictures, but I also want to make the learning fun too.
As she’s gotten older, I’m working on taking the activities with a camera from simple exploration, to activities that are both engaging and educational too.
Today, I’m sharing 3 of my favorite photo activities.
But before I share, let me tell you what I always ensure we take along with us before any photo adventure:
- My book – Phoebe the Photographer: Gets a Camera (affiliate link)
- Camera
- Water bottle
- Snacks
- Bucket or Bag To Collect ‘Treasures’
Guessing Game
This is a perfect mobile phone activity that can be a fun game for you and your child! Go out on a photo walk and take turns with your child, taking photos of objects, both ‘close up’ and ‘far away’. Make this activity into a game by sharing your close up photos after they’re taken, and then seeing if the other person can guess what it is.
After guessing, reveal the far away shot with the ’answer’.
Depending on the age of your child, close up photos can be a good technical focus challenge for older ones.
Depending on your camera, the lens may not allow you to get extremely close to your subject. Practice finding focus by keeping a steady hand, and checking the viewfinder for blur before you snap. If you find yourself getting a lot of blurry pictures, or if you can’t snap a photo at all, you may be too close.
Back up a bit, and crop the photo in a photo editor (I like the photo Apps Pic Tap Go and VSCO or the online program PicMonkey) if needed, to create your ‘close up’ image after snapping.
Treasure Hunts
While not anything amazingly creative or outside of the box, kids LOVE a good Scavenger Hunt. To make the experience a bit more special, I like to call them ‘treasure hunts’ instead.
I’ve got a few seasonal treasure hunts to get you started, but you can always create your own. These are some of my favorite ‘kid approved themes’:
- Colors
- Shapes
- Alphabet
- Seasonal
- Nature
- Animals
Another fun hunt we’ve been exploring lately is the wonderful world of ‘GeoCaching’. A digital scavenger hunt in your own backyard using an easy to download app.
Check out the site, search for a few caches in and around your town, and bring the camera along to capture the experience!
Time Capsules
Set out to make a time capsule of images with your family. Get together and make a list of some of the fun things you want to remember about this time in your life. Your favorite games to play, places to go, people to see, or outfits to wear. Once you have your list, snap photos of each of these items.
I’ve got two ideas for compiling a final capsule once you’re done snapping pictures.
Printed Time Capsule: Print the images and place them in a sealed envelope. You could get creative and bury the capsule outdoors if you wish, or simply tuck the capsule away in a corner/closet/room in your house.
Digital Time Capsule: Save the images to the cloud (Dropbox would work well for this) and then write a letter with your child on Future Me. Be sure to include a direct link to your Dropbox folder of images in the letter! Schedule the letter to be sent to you at a set time in the future!
Five, 10, or 20 years from now, when you choose to peek at those photos again, you’ll have many smiles and laughs looking through them all.
Which of these activities will you try?
Want even more Photo Activities to try with your kiddos?
I’m Beryl Ayn Young, Photo Mom & Mentor and I love teaching moms and their kids how to love their photos and their life.
“Click! A ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ Guide For Kids With Cameras” is my completely free resource for you — with 5 more fun photography activities you can do today with your kids. Get your copy right HERE.
3 Photo Activities For Kids Who Love Taking Pictures on handsonaswegrow.com
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