Digital Photography for Preschoolers

Funded Apr 4, 2022

Last school year you generously donated to my project to provide digital cameras for my preschool students. Your help was incredible. Over the course of a few weeks, I showed 3, 4, and 5 year-olds how to use a camera. We focused on choosing our favorite parts of our classroom, our favorite toys, and our favorite parts of the playground. We also photographed our friends playing and being in school together. We learned how to center an object we wanted to photograph. Some of us even figured out how to change the settings on the camera!

This project was to introduce the media of photography. While the act of taking pictures has become much easier with the introduction of camera phones, children are not taught the technique of looking and intentionally choosing something to photograph and how to photograph it.

While, I was excited to introduce photography and cameras to the students I was not sure how they would take to it. I wasn't sure if they would be interested and be able to be intentional with the photographs they took. But I was wrong to be nervous. The students were so excited to try the cameras.

They not only learned how to use the camera, but they started to explore their room, and photograph lots of different nooks and crannies. Areas that as adults we may not see. Areas like the inside of a doll house, or the back of a shelf of blocks. A few students also started to set up pictures by taking toys and staging them to photograph.

I will continue to use the cameras this school year, and years to come. And hope to plant the seed of a love of photography in my students.”

With gratitude,

Ms. Zak