Camera Activities For Children

Give Them Something To Work With

Every great director needs to start out with a script. Camera activities will help your child with his or her new camera have some great fun with just a little guidance.

As soon as you can make the investment, match your child with a digital camera designed for their age and ability. (Use your favorite search tool for "children's cameras", etc. or visit your favorite toy store.)

Turn photography into a creative, learning experience for kids. Teaching "cause and effect" will instill some great lessons in a child and all you have to do is to put a camera in their hand and turn them loose!

Have them take photos of "their" world for you. What is important to them in their room? Your home? Who and what do they want to take a photo of naturally? Any pets? Let them experiment and give praise and compliment them on ANYTHING they choose to photograph (within reason of course.) Not many of us have pictures of everyday items we valued once as a child, your child will!

Camera activities can be fun. If their personality has developed enough, have them snap some photos that any adults or siblings, if any, can make a game of guessing what they are at a later time. Tell them to get really close or zoom in to things and have them stay quiet until they have a group of photos to show together. This will also require them to pay attention and to remember what they had taken the photos of also!

Do they have any dolls, figurines or action figure toys? Stuffed animals? Ask him or her to pose them for some photos and/or create some scenes with them to stimulate even more imagination.

Collections have unfortunately become things of the past for most children. Encourage kids once again to collect things. When they look forward to searching for and discovering more of the items, they will usually place more value on them. But, in addition to tangible items such as toy sets, pokemon cards, doll collections or state quarter sets, through the use of their camera, they can capture and collect anything of interest to them such as other friend's bikes or skateboards, neighborhood cars, clouds or birds and cats.

Does your child have a younger sibling? If you want some cute baby pictures , see what photos a beaming older brother or sister will get for you!

Day trips will take on a new twist when your child has a camera at the zoo or park. Stap it on their wrist, make sure they protect it and tell them to take only the most important shots so they learn to internalize in their mind and concentrate more on what they are seeing.

Then Put Their Photos On Paper

Camera activities are infinite but, take the concept several steps further.

Have your child prioritize their favorite photos, order them online or at your local store photo department and get them on paper. You will want to get the best photos from those camera activities saved for the future in a more secure manner than just digitally. Have them write captions if they are old enough or have them describe to you while you summarize their thoughts if they are not ready. Journals and scrap books are great ways to help your child get more creative while they recall their actions and reinforce what they had thought about them.

Today, there are many reasonable photo company websites that make it extremely easy to add favorite photos to mugs, t-shirts, puzzles (which help cognitive thinking), and almost any other trinket you can imagine. They really make special gifts for relatives and friends. I know it is a pain, but, take the time to pick some special photos from those camera activities, order and wait for items to be shipped. The effort you put out will definitely show and you will have constant reminders of the love you shared through photography.