In the past, we've given you a whole laundry list of prompts and poses for each age group, but for school-aged kids, we didn't feel like we could give just one or two tips. That's because all of our tips for photographing school-aged kids boil down to one thing, MAKE IT FUN. 

Our entire online photography course for parents, Capturing Everyday Magic, is centered around the concept of making pictures fun no matter when or where they are happening. Once your kids hit Kindergarten, they start to fully understand that you are taking pictures and if they don't have a good association with your camera or picture taking, they are going to give you their fakest smile (at best), and hope it's enough to get you to put the camera down. 

The key to real smiles is to make sure they are having a blast. In our course, we show you how we photograph our four, very different, school-aged children. We show you how we overcome their moods and their fake smiles, and how we make picture taking so fun that they actually ask to take pictures. 

Right now, I'm (@cristin_more) running the #itsmomchallenge on instagram. It's a challenge where I ask parents to get in the frame with at least one of their children every day. One of the most common things I hear is that kids actually get excited to take pictures during the challenge. It makes sense! They are involved in a challenge with their parent! There is a prize! The pictures are just because and there is no expectation, so parents have incentives to get weird and just have fun with their kids. 

When you take the pressure of ‘getting the shot’ away and focus on the fun, you'd be amazed at how much quicker you actually get the shot!

It sounds simple, but with all of the expectations of an instagram or frame-worthy photo, it really can be more difficult than you think. 

So today, just take a walk with your kid and see how much fun you can make it with your camera out the entire time. Get them used to the idea that pictures can be awesome!

Then tag us (@cristin_more and @tenleyclark) or use the hashtag #capturingeverydaymagic so we can see the results!

If you are really struggling with it, or just don't know where to start, you can buy our course at the link below!