Jason LeeA boy and a camera. With the passage of time, surely you have been accumulating a lot of electronic devices in recent years. If you are also fond of photography, surely you will have accumulated some old camera. With my children the camera has become a way of seeing the world in an educational and fun way. In short, the photography as an educational tool for children.
Preliminaries
Well, from my experience, my little girl, Naomi, 2 years old is attracted to take the camera. Pressing a button and seeing the result on the screen, it drives her crazy. Therefore, and given that Diego, the oldest, 5 years old, already wants to take his photos, we have destined for them an old compact Panasonic LS3 so they can take their pictures. It has 5 Megapixels and carries batteries!
Possible games
That is why I recommend that before taking a children's camera, which usually have a poor quality in addition to having difficult connectivity (because we would like to save the photos that our children have made) and be expensive, if you can get a somewhat old and compact camera that you no longer use, for me, it is a better option (besides the harder, the better).
The first thing I taught Diego is to use the basics of the camera:
- Always reach for the belt, so that it does not fall
- Take the camera with both hands and position your fingers (a couple of times you do it will take it better than you) to press the trigger button.
- The automatic shooting modes. Diego knows he can use the heart symbol and that of a camera (they are the two automatic modes it has).
- Of course the triangle to see the photos and how to turn it on and off.
In 10 minutes he was already telling me: "Daddy, let go, I already know." In fact, I have not had to explain it again. Now he usually carries the camera in his backpack from time to time, next to his cars and other toys.
Possible educational photo games
With the little ones the first options happen because they photograph mom, dad and their siblings, that is, people around him. Something fun for them can be putting weird faces and seeing them all together on the screen.
With the older ones we can propose a more advanced game such as color or number recognition. For example, we can give the camera to the child (4-6 years) and tell him to photograph things of red first, blue later, yellow, brown, ... etc. With numbers like that, take a picture where there is a toy, another where there are two, ... etc. We combine the educational with the game. Funny right?
Another possible game is to make a gimkana, and send them to find the treasures and take a picture as proof. The possibilities are endless. The limit is your imagination. The next day I will talk about photographic projects to do with your children.
The game is a game above all
As we see in the National Geographic video, children play, just that. Forget about giving him a class about goals, difframes or composition. Let them play and learn.
They are much more spontaneous and direct With the camera in his hands. We should learn from them. We as adults, we stop, think, frame, expect change, and this button and a thousand stories. We lack naturalness. We need to play.
In short, take your old camera and play with your child, help him explore the world through the goal.
Video | National Geographic
