catherine.macmillan

Today the pre-school children were learning how to take photographs with the digital blue camera. They were really motivated by what you could do to the photographs using the software that came with the camera.

They quickly picked up how to both take the photographs and download them onto the laptop. The activity was linked into our Space topic. The children could animate the photographs they had taken by adding special effects or space backgrounds.

I then encouraged the children to go around the school and take photos of other members of staff. This helps them to become familiar with other people and places within the school before moving up into primary one.

The children are already confident in taking photographs with digital cameras but this activity allowed them to further develop a range of basic photography skills in a fun way. When they had taken the photographs they independently downloaded them onto the laptop via the USB camera base. They were then introduced to using a simple storyboard as they added the photos they wanted to edit. When they were animating their pictures they were using a range of skills- clicking, dragging, minimising/enlarging, using preview mode before finally presenting their end ‘masterpiece’ to others.

This activity was a fun way of introducing very young children to a new way of using digital photography. It linked in with our current theme as well as supporting the children’s transition from nursery to primary.