3 Fun Photography Activities For Kids
If one of your New Year resolutions was to improve your photography skills in 2024, it might be worth revisiting the resolution that didn’t work out quite so well last year – getting your kids interested in photography.
A lot of parents try to get their kids interested in photography at an early age, but it doesn’t always work out. It’s not enough to simply hand your kid a smartphone and hope that things start to click.
As with any new hobby, it’s important to encourage them and give them the motivation to stay interested. This is why we’ve listed out three of the best kid-friendly activities below, as well as a few ideas on how to keep their photography flowing over the next few months.
Give Them a Photo Book of Their Own
Kids like being rewarded. Whether it’s a piece of candy for completing their homework or thirty minutes on the PlayStation for doing thirty minutes of music practice, kids need an end goal in sight if they’re going to stay stimulated. The same should be said for photography.
One of the traps that parents fall into is giving their kids a camera, but failing to reward them for the photos that they take. A photo book can be the perfect way to avoid this. Tell your child that, if they take enough photos, they can put their best into a lovely photo book that can sit on their very own shelf. If they’re lacking in ideas, come up with a few specific tasks.
Ask them to think about their favourite color, and then photograph things with that color palette. Or ask them to take a picture of someone special every day, whether that be you, their grandparents, or even themselves. At the end of a given timeframe, your child can pick the best pictures to go inside – which similarly gives them constant motivation to improve their skills – and you can make the photo book in 2 clicks. It’s that easy!
Take Them on a Photography Scavenger Hunt
This is a very popular photography activity for kids, and for good reason. We all know that kids love a scavenger hunt. Think of it like Easter egg hunting, only with photographs! One of the best ideas is to send your kid on an adventure to photograph as many things as possible that start with a certain letter.
For instance, the letter ‘B’. Pretty soon, you’ll find them rushing through the house photographing everything from the beds, the bannisters, the bean bags, bread bins, bananas, bags, bubbles, the list goes on and on!
You might even find them taking on heavier challenges, like venturing outdoors to photograph the birds in the trees or the bumble bees in the flower beds. With a little mission like this, they’ll get inventive with it and push themselves to photograph things they wouldn’t have otherwise photographed.
It doesn’t just have to be letters, either. If you have more than one child, another activity to get them both involved is ‘photo bingo’, which involves giving your kids a list of objects and challenging them to be the first to photograph them. They then have to organise those photos and learn how to tell a story with them. This is a great way to insert a bit of competitive spirit into their photography, as well as spur them on to be more creative!
Do A Full-Blown Photoshoot
One of the other great activities involves putting your kid in front of the camera instead of behind. All you need is a simple concept – like a character from your kid’s favorite movie – and a little shopping trip to pick up a few costumes.
When it comes to costume finessing, let the kids get involved. If you let them tie the knot or paint over the newspaper, then they’ll feel a lot more involved with the preparation of the photo shoot, and therefore be more willing to pose for photos later. After this is done, you can venture outside and start snapping. Ask them to pose like a superhero or a fairytale princess, and snap as many high-production shots as you can – this activity will even test your skills!
What you’ll be left with is several photos that get your kid excited about the photoshoot process. Once again, you can upload them to a photo book maker and give the shoot to your child as a gift. Thanks to your photography skills, they will look amazing, and this will show them how powerful photography can be and inspire them to keep going with their own.
You might think this is more of an activity for you, rather than for your kids! But the point is that it’s a collaborative, enjoyable process, designed to show your kids the wonders of photography, and how – with just a bit of work – they can create a fantastical world that is completely their own.
