As the back-to-school season rapidly approaches, it’s a great time to gear up your favorite students to get behind the camera for first-day-of-school snapshots. Though it’s always tempting to pass along your old digital camera to your kids (so you can upgrade with a bit less guilt), your hand-me-down point and shoot isn’t always age-appropriate. To help you snap up a camera that will suit students of any age, here’s a shortlist of my favorite back-to-school cameras arranged by grade:
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| Image Gallery: Check out photos of the Top 5 digital cameras for kids. |  |
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Preschool: LeapFrog Click n’ Create Digital Camera
Sakar International makes several digital cameras that are geared toward pre-schoolers — including a Dora the Explorer camera and a SpongeBob Squarepants camera that actually comes with a waterproof housing. But I prefer Sakar’s LeapFrog Click n’ Create Digital Camera because it offers higher resolution (2.1megapixels) and better image quality as well as a 1.5-inch preview LCD. While preschoolers might gravitate toward the Dora and SpongeBob characters, the lack of an LCD on those cameras is a dealbreaker for me. The size of the LeapFrog camera is great for little hands, as are the rubberized grips that make the camera feel fairly sturdy, though it’s nowhere near as solidly built (or versatile) as the Vtech Kidizoom Plus, which sells for the same $50. Though the Vtech camera (which I recommend for slightly older kids) is a much better value for the money, if you’re buying for a 2 or 3 year old, the LeapFrog camera will be easier to handle — both because it’s much simpler to use, and because of its more compact size. Tots will love that the camera says “great shot!” when you snap a photo and “bye-bye” when you turn it off, but parents will be grateful there’s an option to turn off the sound since there’s no volume control. The camera comes with 8MB of built-in memory, so it can store roughly 100 photos depending on the resolution you choose. But because it’s SD RAM, you must download the images before you remove the batteries or you’ll lose all your shots. Bundled software includes LeapFrog brand games and basic photo editing software for use on a PC or Mac.
