The Favorite Aunt

Here’s another great way to amuse your niece/nephews that doesn’t involve TV, video or candy.

Macs come with an application from Apple called Photo Booth. Using the iSight camera in your Mac, you can take little snapshots that can be emailed or used as profile icons. I just discovered this 4-up “burst” mode that will take four shots in rapid succession. When I say “rapid”, I mean it. The shots are taken just a second or so apart. A real photo booth gives you time to prep for each shot, but with Photo Booth, you have to be fast.

In Seattle, I challenged Charlotte (11) to a face-making race. “Straight, sad, happy, mad,” I said. It’s really hard to do when the camera is going off so quickly. We probably did 20 takes before we got the one on the right that was satisfactory, with much hilarity. When Emily (18) and I got back to Portland yesterday, we played the same game with the same hilarious results.

Aunt hack ratings:
Age group: 7-18
Duration of activity: 30-45 minutes
Cost: none (if you have a Mac)
Child/aunt fun ratio: 50/50

I apologize to the non-Mac-owning aunts–I couldn’t come up with any Windows equivalent for Photo Booth. If you know of one, please share in the comments!