There are lots of great ways to get kids involved with photography, and getting crafty always keeps them interested. If you want to make sure that your kids grow up with a passion for photography – or give your clients an extra addition to their family portrait packages – these ideas could really do the trick. Give them a try and see which turn out to be the most popular with your little ones!
Using Printed Photographs
With these ideas, you need to take a photograph or two first and then print them to make them work. You can enlist your child’s help to take the photos, or you can set up a mini portrait session with them to get all the shots you need.
- Flip and switch books – this idea is fairly simple but a lot of fun. Stick several pieces of paper together, and cut them into thirds to make three flaps down the page. On the top flap, cut out and stick pictures of heads of people from your family. For the other two flaps, you can either use photographs or get creative and draw some illustrations! The torso with arms and then the legs don’t have to be human – your kids will find it all the more funny if they can “wear” a duck’s body or robot legs!
- Get carried away – cut out photographs of your kids jumping up into the air with one arm up-stretched. You might need to take a lot of shots to get one that works! Then you can draw and cut out bundles of balloons, or big birds, or whatever else could lift them into the air, at the same scale as the photographs. Stick the two together and hang them from the ceiling to create personalised art that looks like your child is flying away!
- Half and half art – Cut a printed photograph in half, or use Photoshop to delete one side before printing, and make sure there is plenty of blank space on the paper to the other side. Get your child to fill in the rest of the picture with crayons! This works best with a simple item photographed on a white background, such as a piece of fruit or a toy.
- Crafty cards – take photographs of your kids holding their hands out as if grasping an invisible stick. Format them as cards and print them out – now is where it gets fun! Cut a slot in the card just below and after your child’s hand. They can stick anything in the gap – use heart-shaped lollies for Valentine’s Day cards, or candy canes for Christmas.
- Drawing on photographs – whether they stick to the obvious mustaches or go for something really creative, this is a great way to get your kids thinking like artists. They will also have a lot of fun whether they go the silly route or the serious one! You can display the best drawings as framed artwork in your house later on.
Get Them Snapping
There’s nothing like getting your kids’ perspective on the world. Hand them a camera – it doesn’t have to be a DSLR if you are worried about breakages – and give them a project to do. They will have a lot of fun and learn about using the camera in the process!
- Alphabet letters – Ask them to go out and find things in the natural world or your neighborhood that look like letters. They can take pictures of whatever they like, and afterwards you can combine all of their shots together to create your very own photographic alphabet print.
- Make a pinhole camera – it’s quite easy to make your own pinhole camera from a cardboard box, and your kids will be amazed by how it works. You can use film to make it really work, or get creative and use a larger scale. Then ask them to draw over what they can see on the back of the camera to create pinhole artwork!
- Photography scavenger hunt – Ask your kids to go on a hunt in a nearby park or wildlife area. Before you go, make sure you know what kind of flowers they can look for, as well as thinking about animals and other forms of life. Make an illustrated list for them to check off. If you want to be really creative, you can take your own shot of the area and remove everything that you want them to get, then cut out their printed photos and get them to stick down everything they found in the right places.
Get Crafty
With older kids, making props is definitely a lot of fun, and it’s something they can handle. Make sure that you supervise, especially when using scissors or glue!
- Make props for your sessions – if you’re a professional photographer, your kids can help out with your studio business. Get them to help making props for seasonal sessions! They can make paper chains to hang in backgrounds, or cut out shapes to stick onto a backdrop. They can even help with projects like making artificial clouds out of cotton wool!
- Paint a mural – your kids can also help to create the backgrounds of their own portraits. Get them to paint a mural together and then photograph them messing around in front of it. If they paint a seaside, for example, you should get them dressed up with bucket and spade and pretending that they really are at the beach! This makes for some great memories which you will really cherish.
- Photobook challenge – find a prompt challenge online which gives you lots of different ideas for daily photographs, and try to complete them all with your kids. They will love modelling for you and having a great time coming up with creative ideas! At the end, you can get it all printed into a photobook to show off everything you achieved.
What are your favourite craft projects to do with your kids? Tell us below so we can give them a try!