As part of their brain-building activities and sometimes homeschool projects, we’ve had our young children study about photography, videography, and filming. They’ve produced their own short “films” and videos and have enjoyed applying their photography skills in many ways.

Just to show her how much we appreciated her talent as a ten-year-old, we used my daughter Pelaiah’s photo of us (Tim and myself) inside the first children’s book, Healthy ABC's, my husband and I co-wrote together. She gets delighted when she sees her name credited as a photographer in the softcover book. As a parent and mommy, that gives me great joy!

STUDYING STOP-MOTION

I can’t remember how long it’s been, but we’ve been studying stop-motion films and photography for a while. We’ve seen the difference in the “stop motion” look based upon how many frames per second are in a film and how to break down parts of a photography session to make a better short film. We’ll watch samples from ads as well as simple short films and then discuss what we’ve learned --- what worked, what didn’t work, what made the video great and interesting, and what improvement could be applied to make it even better.

Interestingly, around the same time we started studying stop-motion photography, Tim was telling me about some neat stories involving brilliant minds who attributed part of their creativity and productivity success to building with LEGO bricks as a child. This discussion also happened during the rare shopping trips to discount stores that we took with our children to get a brain-building game or toy as a reward.

WAIT FOR THE GOOD STUFF

They spotted plastic brick sets that were a great deal, but Tim encouraged us to wait until we could afford to buy LEGOs. Our children didn’t complain. Though they wanted a plastic brick-building set to use that night, they were excited to wait. They’ve seen the rewards that come in trusting us as their parents.  Read more and see the videos at...Wholesome Place