Focus Academy 1st Grade Photography: Telling Stories with Color, Light & Emotion

This 9-week photography course for 1st graders helps young learners dive into the world of composition and storytelling. Students will explore how to capture subjects with basic composition techniques, such as understanding the relationship between the foreground and background, while developing their storytelling skills by creating simple photo sequences. Through hands-on projects, they’ll learn how to photograph patterns, weather, and people in their community while practicing descriptive writing to accompany their images. By the end of the course, learners will have created their own visual stories that highlight their creativity and growing photography skills.

In this interactive online class, students will explore the art of photography through fun and educational activities. Each week focuses on a different aspect of composition or storytelling, giving learners a solid foundation in visual storytelling while enhancing their observation skills. They will photograph nature, patterns, light, and community landmarks, while practicing simple descriptive writing skills like crafting captions and stories for their images.

Live Zoom sessions will include engaging activities such as games, slideshows, photo challenges, and group discussions. Learners will receive guidance on taking creative photos that tell stories and learn how to sequence pictures to form a narrative. Photography will be integrated with math concepts, such as counting and identifying patterns, and science concepts, like observing and documenting weather. Students will interact with the teacher and classmates during show-and-tell segments, where they’ll share their photos and receive feedback.

This course is part of a series offering a complete and comprehensive photography curriculum for all grade levels, Kindergarten through 12th grade. All of these courses meet grade-level academic standards for photography and integrate other art, English, math, science, and social studies skills. 

Focus for 1st Grade Photography: Composition and Storytelling

Photography Skill: Basic composition (subject, background, and foreground)

English Skill: Descriptive writing (writing captions and simple stories for photos)
Math Skill: Counting and simple patterns (e.g., photographing objects in groups of 2s, 3s, 4s)
Science Skill: Weather and seasons (photographing clouds, rain, sunshine)
Social Studies Skill: Exploring the local environment (photographing key places)

💡 Group Learning: This class runs with a minimum of two learners. We generally delay sections with solo learners up to 3 times to give more learners time to join before cancelling the section, unless requested sooner by the family.