Creative ideas for little photographers!
Kids are often interested in and aware of photography from being tiny. Here are some ideas to help fuel their creativity. These challenges are aimed at approximately 3-10 year olds and can be adapted accordingly. They can be taken on an old phone or a kids camera. To make these challenges extra special and memorable don't forget to print! Inkifi's mini prints would be perfect for lots of these ideas.
Rainbow
Great for practising colours and grouping objects! Collect objects/favourite things in each colour of the rainbow then take a photo of each colour group. Print them out and create an object rainbow!
Cyanotype
One for a sunny day! You can buy the cyanotype paper (sometimes called 'sun print paper or sunography paper) from various places. You place objects on the paper, sit it out in the sun then wash the paper to be left with white where the object was and blue where it wasn't.
Shadows
Experiment with taking photos of shadow puppets. There's a great hand shadow book here.
Or on a bright sunny day line up favourite toys and capture their shadows. You can try drawing the shadows too!
A day in the life
Set a timer at a specific interval - it could be every 15 mins or every hour of the day and have your child take a picture of something in that moment. By bedtime they will have a visual diary of that day!
Letters
3 options for this:
- find objects that start with the letters of their name and create a visual 'object' version of a name.
- Find objects that look like letters to make a name.
- go outside and find signs with the letters to make a name.
These can be printed and framed for their bedroom wall.
family tree
Great to get them taking portraits! A photo of each family member (and pet/s!) Print the photos! Here are a few ideas of how to display them -
- Draw a tree on cardboard and glue the photos on it.
- punch a hole in the top, string through and hang on a branch.
- Canva do drag and drop templates like this:
photo walk
Take a walk and capture interesting things you come across. This could be in an urban or rural setting. If you feel your child would benefit from more of a focus make it into a scavenger hunt. See next!
scavenger hunt
The beauty of this is that it can be done inside on a rainy day or outside in the sunshine. I’ve created a PDF download (see below) a short list aimed more for the 3-5 year olds and a longer list for 5-10 year olds. You could have a little treat ready for once they’ve ticked off all the items.
Free pdf downloadable scavenger hunts for 3-5 & 5-10 year olds!
A handy print-out that can be used indoors and outside!
