Signs of Spring Photo Walk

This morning I wanted to snap some pictures of the fruit blossoms at our local orchard.  Since my youngest creative little heart doesn't have school until the afternoon he had to tag along.  To make it more interesting for him I let him use one of our old digital cameras.  I showed him the basic functions along with some simple rules like don’t touch the lens, always keep the strap around your wrist, and don't look through the viewfinder while you are walking.  Then we headed out to the orchard to find signs of spring!

What started out as a way to keep him occupied (and from getting whiny) ended up putting some other skills to good use.  He was able to read the label on the on/off button and count down the number of pictures he had left.  He learned the terms zoom, focus and point of view.  There was a beautiful clear sunny sky today, but the temperature was unseasonable chilly.  Even though our walk was somewhat short we ended up with some nice photos.  

If you have an old camera or cell phone with a camera feature lying around, put it good use by letting your little creative hearts snap some photos with it. They will be so proud of the pictures they take!

Here's what my creative little heart came up with.

Kid Director: Stop Action Animation

Today we combined our shutterbug’s love for taking pictures with his love for trains.  He has clocked in many hours around his train table.  You may notice the red wooden engine in the video, where the corners are all worn and the paint is chipped off.  Someday many of their childhood toys may be passed on to younger cousins or sold in a yard sale, but that engine will probably remain – maybe even get bronzed as a memento of his childhood.  On a daily basis he comes up with complex storylines for his engines so I set up a tripod with his little point and shoot digital camera and showed him how to take a photo and then move a train(s) slightly and take another photo to enact one of the stories.  Then we loaded the photos on our desktop computer, removing any that were blurry or seemed unnecessary.  My tech savvy husband then loaded the photos into movie editing software and recorded our son’s voice narrating the scenes.  Then he added another layer of audio in the form of instrumental music with a creative commons license from www.freemusicarchive.org.  I hope you will enjoy his first stop animation video and maybe try your hand at stop action animation with your creative little hearts.

Photography is Drawing with Light

This photography experiment I tried with my boys was inspired by a book we borrowed from our local library, Sam and the Firefly by P.D. Eastman.  It’s about an owl who befriends a firefly named Sam who can blink his light on and keep it on so Gus, the owl, teaches him to write words in the sky.  The story goes from there, the firefly plays tricks on people writing “free show” over the movie theater and changing the “hot” sign on the hot dog sign to “cold”.  It’s not the most amazing story, but it’s cute and the idea of drawing with light was fun.  Sam the firefly eventually uses his new skill to save the day by stopping a train before it crashes. 

I received a new camera for Christmas so one night at bedtime I had the boys bring their new flashlights to their bedroom with them.  My camera is a single lens reflex camera (SLR) that allows you some creative control over the shutter speed etc.  I set the shutter speed at about 4 seconds and turned the automatic focus to manual.  The boys took turns writing letters in the air, drawing shapes, and dancing.  It’s not that easy to write backwards so I wrote some words and flipped them horizontally on the computer later on.  My husband tried outlining the boys with the flashlight which turned out pretty cool too. 



 

Heart

Zigzag from head to toe





  On a side note I realized that my writing with light looked just like my normal hand writing.  This is intriguing to me since I wrote in the air using wide sweeping arm movements, completely different muscle groups than writing with typical pen and paper.  But when I look at these words written with light I totally recognize it as my handwriting.  My husband who is much more mathematically oriented than I am also found this interesting.  “The math in that is beautiful,” he said. 






Smiley Face

Circle using your arm as a compass



 

Spiral



Dancing











 





10 Tips for Taking Children to the Art Museum



Viewing a photography exhibit of Ron Rosenstock
at the Worcester Art Museum



Growing up, my sister and I were frequently brought to art museum exhibits.  I still remember trips to Boston and Philadelphia.  I love art history, and want my kids to have positive experiences of going to the museum.  There is so much you can learn about history and other cultures through the art made by different people.  Many pieces can inspire my little ones to go home and dabble in their paints and play dough. 



Earlier this summer we took my five year old to the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts.  There was an exhibit of photography that we thought he would like since he loves taking snapshots with his own little digital camera. 



The idea of bringing a child into an art museum can be daunting.  It’s a place that is mostly quiet, sometimes silent, where no snacks are allowed, nothing can be touched, and there’s lots of open space where you cannot run!  But, I have ventured out with my little ones and have comprised a list of ten tips I have found to be helpful.  I am sharing them with you in hopes that it will make your trip to the art museum, with children, a successful one.

1. Hone into your child's interest.  Finding an exhibit that taps into to your child’s interests will help them be more likely to engage in the exhibit.  They will be less likely to be bored and more likely to make connections with their life experience if it’s something they’ve read about or learned about in school.



2. Do your homework.  There may be special galleries at the museum geared toward younger patrons or hours set aside where children are especially welcome.  It’s always good to check out their website to double check their hours of operation, where to park, and other important information before you venture out.

Medieval architecture, originally from the
Benedictine Priory of Saint John in France. 

3. Take advantage of summer time specials and reciprocal memberships.  If you are visiting another city, check to see if your membership at a museum in your hometown is accepted at other museums.  Many museums accept memberships from other museums that are accredited by the same organizations.  We happened to be at the Worcester Art Museum in Worcester, Massachusetts where they have free general admission for the months of July and August.  Take advantage of any specials that are available.  They are offering these because they want you to come!

4. Explain what the museum will be like and how you expect your child to act.  Before the day of the trip to the museum be sure and explain what the museum will be like.  I try to emphasize that there will be other people looking at the art and it is important to be respectful so they don’t disturb anyone.  In most cases learning to act respectful is the best way to avoid embarrassing behavior.  I also try to spin it so I’m not giving a list of rules and things they cannot do, but rather things they need to do, like be quiet, have walking feet, and keep their hands to themselves (rather than saying: no yelling, no running, no touching).  And explain why: just like at the library people are thinking and reading and you will break their concentration if you are too loud, you could knock someone or something down if you run, your fingers will leave damaging oils on the artwork if you touch it, and probably set off an alarm.

5. Engage in conversation with your kids and bond with them.  Talk about what you like about a piece of artwork: the colors, the subject, the way the light and shadows look.  You don’t have to know a lot about the art, just tell them your gut feeling about what makes it interesting to you.  Point out how incredibly old something is or what part of the world it comes from. 

6. Make it fun!  I like to stand in front of a wall of artwork or in the center of the gallery and on the count of three have my family (discretely) point at their favorite piece.  It’s fun to see who likes the same piece or find out how different your taste is.  Older kids might enjoy doing a scavenger hunt.  One that doesn’t require a lot of planning on your part is to give them a piece of paper with the alphabet on it and have them fill in names of artists, titles, art movements, countries etc that they find during their journey through the exhibit.  Reward them with a quarter for every letter they fill in and let them buy a small souvenir or some postcards in the gift shop on your way out.

7. Take advantage of kid friendly amenities that the museum offers.  If there is a hands-on gallery, you want to know about it.  If there is a headset tour geared towards kids, they might enjoy it more than reading plaques on the wall.  Check their website and ask the front desk what they might recommend for your little one.



8.  Let your child set the pace.  Just because you want to linger in your favorite gallery doesn’t mean they will.  If you are truly there to give your child a positive experience let them move from piece to piece when they want to. 



9. Leave the museum with your child wanting more.  Dragging them through an entire museum to get your money’s worth or because you’ve planned to be there for the day can be too much for your child.  Pay attention to them and leave before they are overly exhausted and hungry.



10.  Pack a snack for the walk back to the car or ride home.  Just because snacks aren’t permitted in the museum doesn’t mean you can’t keep a secret snack that you bring out as you leave the building. (By secret I mean: don’t tell your child you have a snack or they will whine for it before you can actually give it to them.) Having something to munch on helps tired legs and feet make it back to the car without a piggy back ride and makes the ride home more pleasant too.  Oh, and pack a snack for yourself too.

What things do you do to make visits to a museum more successful and enjoyable for you and your children?



Photography Walk

My husband and I have given our preschooler our old digital camera.  We came across it while looking for items for a yard sale and since it is over ten years old we decided that instead of selling it for $5, we’d outfit it with a neck strap and hand it over to our preschooler.  It is pretty fun to see pictures he takes from around our house from his point of view.  He takes pictures of things that are important to him and that he finds interesting.





from our flamingo tour



Now that warm spring-like weather has arrived, we’ve been able to break out the sit- and-stand stroller and take the boys for walks in our neighborhood.  One of the fun things to do with my little budding photographer is to go on a photo walk.  Sometimes we decide ahead of time what we are going to look for and take pictures of.  We’ve been on a flamingo tour of the neighborhood.  We’ve watched for flags, pumpkins, shapes, birds, flowers and litter (which we picked up along the way).  Our most recent excursion was to take pictures of signs of spring.  Sometimes we have a certain destination like the post office or library and we have created a game for him to practice counting.  He knows how many pictures he has room for on his card.  We divide that number in two and he pays attention to the number on the screen and tries to pace himself, taking half the photos on the way out to our destination and half on the way home. 





When we return home we watch a slide show on our computer of the photos he took and choose the best ones.  We then upload these to Facebook where we can share them with friends and family, especially his grandparents who have an interest in photography and are probably his biggest fans.  We sometimes do some more counting as we figure out how many photos were taken in a certain category.  For example, we add up the total number of flamingos in our neighborhood, how many flags were American flags, or the total of each shape he found.

 Our photography walks are a fun way to get some fresh air and exercise while taking in our surroundings, teaching my little one a creative way to be more observant of the world around him.  Dust off that obsolete camera in your closet or keep a lookout for a cheap one that has been tossed aside.  It may turn out to be very valuable to your creative little heart.



Our Fall foliage walk

Signs of Spring walk

Pumpkins

some fantastic fungus caught his eye on this walk

I know I am biased, but I have to admit some of his photos are pretty impressive!