Summertime is the best time to teach your kids photography. In summer, the days are long and it is very bright and the light is excellent. This helps your child to click great pictures. The better the photographs, the more your child will be interested in the art of photography.
Since children have a lot of time during the summer, teaching them photography and trying new ideas of how to engage them in photography are excellent ways of keeping them occupied and improving their skills as a photographer.
In today’s age, it is very easy to click a photo, especially since most mobile phones have a good camera. However, clicking a good photograph is an art and it needs to be taught to your child. If your child has an interest in photography or you want to teach them photography, summer is the best time to reach them. Photography is a great tool that you can use to teach your child about the world around us, to help them interact with it better and have fun while doing so.
It is always better to teach while playing games so that the child learns it more easily. I have mentioned below the top five activities that you can try to teach your child how to click a great photo, how to improve their memory and how to think outside of the box and improve their creativity
Let’s get started.
- Tell a story using photographs
You can ask your child to click ten photos. You can then get your child to engage their creative minds and start writing stories describing the photographs that they have taken. The advantage of this exercise is that not only will they improve their photography skills; it will also improve their imagination and vocabulary.
You can get your children to take 10 diverse photos. These photographs should include things, places, and people that they want in their story. You could also ask them to take photographs of family members and then write a story about it. It would be good if your kid is using a Polaroid camera for kids. That way they can get immediate prints. They can then paste the photos in sequence of the story in a family journal or a book and then explain the events around each picture. This is a fun way for your child to bond with the family and also have fun.
- Learn colors and alphabets
One of the best ways of learning colors and numbers is by making it as a game for your child. You can use outdoor photography to help your child learn their numbers and colors. You can have them walk around the neighborhood and take photographs of objects that all have a certain color or you can have them take photographs of objects that start with a certain alphabet.
This way we improve their abilities to identify colors and learn their letters. You can also go a step further and explain the various shades of a color to your child as they are able to pick up nuances in color shades faster than normal using this activity. Clicking photos outdoors based on colors and alphabets is an excellent summer activity that you can use to improve your child’s knowledge and allow them to enjoy roaming the neighborhood this summer.
- Click photos of the activities you do in your day
Most children get bored with their daily activities and they don’t realize how full and fun-filled their lives are, especially in the months of summer when they get to go out, play and explore their neighborhood. This activity is a great opportunity to show them that they have a fun-filled life.
You can have a session in which they click photos every 15 minutes for five to six hours during the day. Your child can later keep all the photos in sequence and then look at it.
They will realize how fun-filled and enjoyable there day actually is. Their perspective of their day suddenly changes from them thinking that they have a boring life and they now may perceive their lives as exciting as they find new ways to capture a task given to them that they don’t like or to perfectly capture something that they enjoy.
- Scavenger Hunt
A scavenger hunt is a perfect way to engage your children in summer. The weather is great so they can go out and click photos of some specific things. For example, you can assign to them a scavenger hunt of things related to the alphabets of their names. So Tim would need to click photos of three things that relate to the alphabets of his name which would be things starting with the words “T”, “I” and “M”. You can start by clicking things related to the alphabets of your name to get the ball rolling.
- Nature Photography
You can take for a “Time with nature” walk. During the walk, you can point out at things that would be of interest to them. For example; you can point out interesting things to click like a caterpillar crawling on a leaf, the different shades of green on a tree, a bird in flight, the reflection of light on a pond. This activity helps your child to connect with nature and appreciate the natural beauty of the world that surrounds us. It also helps to improve your kid’s sensitivity towards nature and the environment.
Conclusion
Having fun clicking photos in the summer will be memories that your kids will cherish over their lifetime. One of the best advantages of photography is that even many decades later when your child has grown up and when they go through the photographs, they will be able to re-live the sheer joy that they experienced when they were clicking the photographs and they will be able to relive that childhood innocence. Do try the above summer photography activities with your kids and mention in the comments below your experience with it.
About the Author:
Dan Barr is a photographer, a parent to two girls, and the founder of KidsCameraGuide.com, a blog which is all about teaching photography to kids and kids cameras. You can visit Dan at his website www.kidscameraguide.com or connect with him on Facebook or Pinterest.
