Photos are an amazing (and free) resource to use in your homeschool lessons. And they are great for quick, no plan lessons. As an English foreign language teacher, I’ve often used photos in the classroom to get students talking. And your homeschool lessons can benefit just as much. Below are 7 ways that you can use photos to have fun lessons. I’ve also created a download with links to some photos you can use.

How to Use Photos in your Homeschool Lessons

One of my favourite activities to do with the boys, is to download weird photos from Unsplash. Here is a great one, and here is another. Then we simply have a chat about what is in the photo. It helps a lot to get my boys to think about formulating sentences and grammatical structures. And also wonderful for creative thinking and building up vocabulary. For smaller kids, you can use photos to teach very practical vocabulary. I like teaching adverbs of place by placing an object on different parts of the photo. This is a cool photo for this kind of activity. A photo with at least two people, is an interesting way to talk about relationships. For little ones you can look at family vocabulary. While for older kids you can talk about romantic relationships, families and also gender roles. I really like this photo for this kind of lesson. I love using a photo as a starting point for a story. And by adding in another, contrasting or totally unrelated photo, you can really get the creative juices flowing! You could try this photo with this one. This can be used for writing and for oral storytelling. In the same way, photos can be used as inspiration for art. Kids can interpret what they see. Or they can comfortably look at the details of an object or scene for more realistic painting or drawing. How cool is this photo? Photos can be used very successfully to start a unit study. I’ve posted before about how much I love a good unit study. And starting the week by piquing the interest of your kids, is a way that you will ensure a successful unit study. I love this photo as a way to start a unit study about insects. Being able to take a good photo is as much an artform, as painting or drawing. With older kids you can discuss the composition of photos. And try and recreate them. I’m dying to try and recreate this photo myself!

How do you Use Photos in your Homeschool Lessons?

These are just a few ways to use photos in your homeschool lessons. I’m sure you have many more fun and engaging lessons based around photos. I would to hear about them! Please drop me an email or comment below.