3 Photography Projects for Kids

Encourage your child’s innate curiosity through photography. These photo projects are designed to boost your child’s creative thinking skills

Young children are naturally curious. They ask questions and want to understand the people, places, and things in the world around them. Photography is a great way to explore and encourage this innate curiosity. Try these photography projects with your inquisitive and budding photographer. These photo activities are designed to boost your child’s creative thinking skills, including problem solving, observation, and improvisation.

1. Digital Scavenger Hunt

In this photo activity, children use a camera to document everything on their scavenger hunt list. “A scavenger hunt is essentially an exercise in problem solving,” says Helen Hadani, Ph.D., Head of Research at the Center for Childhood Creativity at the Bay Area Discovery Museum. “Finishing the hunt requires creative interpretations of clues and clever strategies to solve each clue.”

Click here for step-by-step instructions of Digital Scavenger Hunt

2. Take Photos

The challenge is to take photos of items that represent a new theme every day for a week. At the end of the week, children make collages and look for overall patterns in the photos. This photo project helps children practice observation skills, a key tool for creative thinking. Don’t forget: Learning and creativity often begin with observation.

Click here for step-by-step instructions of Take Photos

3. Improv Vacation Slideshow

After gathering a collection of themed photos, children must spontaneously make up fun vacation stories in front of an audience. In this game, the child performing has to invent a story about a recent vacation based on a photo they have never seen before. “This activity requires children to improvise, an essential part of the creative process,” says Hadani, an expert in early childhood development. The act of improvising demands children be fearless and open to experiences.

Click here for step-by-step instructions of Improv Vacation Slideshow


More Activities for Kids

Visit CreativityCatapult.org, the Bay Area Discovery Museum’s online collection of free activities that promote creativity development in children ages 2 to 14. The free resource features 80 activities that can be filtered by age, topic, number of participants, level of difficulty, duration of time, and skill.


By Jennifer Moncayo-Hida, Senior Communications Manager at the Bay Area Discovery Museum

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Research backed tips and activities to help parents tap into their child’s creativity and creativity problem solving potential from the Bay Area Discovery Museum and Center for Childhood Creativity

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Written by

A children’s museum that applies the latest research into early learning experiences that inspire and build creative problem solving skills in children

Bay Area Discovery Museum

Research backed tips and activities to help parents tap into their child’s creativity and creativity problem solving potential from the Bay Area Discovery Museum and Center for Childhood Creativity

Welcome to a place where words matter. On Medium, smart voices and original ideas take center stage - with no ads in sight. Watch
Follow all the topics you care about, and we’ll deliver the best stories for you to your homepage and inbox. Explore
Get unlimited access to the best stories on Medium — and support writers while you’re at it. Just $5/month. Upgrade