5 Photography Activities To Do With Your Kids
The school holidays are fast approaching, and you might already be thinking about activities to keep your children entertained.
If your children are anything like my daughter they’ll love getting creative (even if we don’t like the mess!) and there’s evidence that encouraging children to be creative and imaginative early in life can actually help them to be more resourceful and resilient when they’re faced with barriers or obstacles in adult life. Here are 5 fun ways photography projects you can do with your children over the holidays.
A Photography Scavenger Hunt
Help to inspire your children’s creativity with a photography scavenger hunt.
In this activity you provide your children with a camera and a list of things to find and photograph. The items on the list are deliberately open to interpretation and therefore your children can get as creative with their compositions as they like. Depending on their age you can set the scavenger hunt up, and leave them to work their way through it, or stay hands-on and do it together.
Find out how to set up a photography scavenger hunt for your kids here.
A Picture an Hour Project
Find the beauty in your everyday by documenting one day of the holidays with a ‘picture an hour project’ such as this one on the Running With Spoons blog.
Simply take a photograph on the hour, every hour to capture what you’re doing. The idea here is to embrace the imperfection – don’t wait for the perfect moment, until everyone has brushed their hair, or the house is tidy. Just capture the moment. This project will give you a lovely set of photographs to look back on in years to come, and could be something you repeat each year.
Create some fun aerial photographs
Combine chalk drawing with photography, or create a ‘scene’ with fabrics and props to create some fun silhouette photographs.
This is one where you can really get creative, and all you really need is a large floorspace to set your scene, and somewhere to take the photograph from. Not sure where to start? This Pinterest board full of ideas should give you some inspiration:
Visit a Photography Exhibition
We’re lucky to have world-class galleries and exhibitions on our doorstep in London, so why not make the most of it and take your children to see a photography exhibition.
Not sure where to start? I love the Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition, which is currently on at The Natural History Museum and includes photographs taken by children as young as 5 years old! We’ve taken my daughter to this exhibition each year since she was born (she’s almost 3) and she always enjoys seeing the animals in the photographs.
If you take your kids to an exhibition, you might find this guide to encouraging art appreciation in children helpful.
Take Silhouette Portraits
Finally, create some fun silhouette portraits with this step-by-step tutorial.
Perfect for a rainy day, this tutorial shows you how to make your own mini ‘studio’ at home and to photograph and edit the photos so that you have crisp black and white silhouettes. You and your children can get creative with the shapes your silhouettes make by using different props.
Find the full tutorial for making silhouette portraits here.
Over to you
What other creative activities will you be doing with your children over the holidays? I’d love to know. Let me know in the comments below.
