digital and hand-drawn bookmarks: modern kid masterpieces

The Washington Post’s KidsPost is hosting a bookmark design contest for its Summer Book Club.

So between shoving Cheerios and oj in their faces at breakfast on Tuesday, Maddy, Owen, and Cora decided that they were going to enter the contest–and win.

I’m doing mine on Pixie, Owen declared.

I’m drawing mine because I am so good at drawing and coloring.  Cora.

I’m using Pixie, too. I’m like getting really good at it, said Maddy.

With that, breakfast was over and kids shuffled into the craft room to work on their bookmarks.

It was only shared in Tuesday’s KidsPost, so the turnaround time is quick, but if you want your kids to get in on the bookmark design par-tay, then get them thinking, designing, and creating stat.

Here’s the skinny. . .

• Digital and Hand-Drawn Bookmarks– Modern Kid Masterpieces: Modern kid masterpieces because in no time flat, kids can pull off something really fantastic when they put their mind to it.

And it always amazes me to watch my kids concentrating and working hard–whether it’s on the computer, creating a digital design–or whether it’s on the table, pen or markers or watercolors in hand, blank paper in front of them. It’s cool.

The bookmark contest skinny’s in Tuesday’s KidsPost.

So to get my kids started, I turned on the computer. Owen got set up with Pixie–still one of our top choices for digital creation for kids–and he didn’t stop until he was pleased with his bookmark–only about 10 minutes later.

Maddy and Cora started drawing. I cut several 5″ x 2″ blank bookmarks, and they colored, drew, and created.

 

 

Contest Details can be found on the KidsPost site, but essentially:

• it’s open to kids ages 5-13;
• bookmarks should be 5″ x 2″;
• it should be an original design with the “Animal Adventures” theme;
• the winning design will be given to every participant in the KidsPost Summer Book Club;
• the contest ends on Thursday, May 29, 2013 at 5pm;
• bookmarks can be sent to the KidsPost offices or emailed to kidspost@washpost.com.

That’s it.

They worked a little on their designs that night and a bit the next morning, and then I scanned the finished products and sent them in!

 

 

 

What I think is so rockstar about this is not the bookmark design contest–sure, it’s cool but contests come and go. If one of them wins, it’ll be awesome. But if not, that’s okay too.

What I think is really awesome is how differently Maddy, Owen, and Cora thought about and then created their designs: Owen knew immediately what he wanted to do and used Pixie for one and drew another; Maddy used Pixie for her design and changed and re-arranged and changed and re-arranged.  And Cora’s had to be exactly as she pictured them and drew both of hers.

Though there was the inevitable quibbling through this event, I heard collaborating:

Um, Maddy, I want to make it so the dog is like thinking ‘Animal Adventures’ so do you know a way to make that bubble? or

Do you think kids will want an orange background or a green one?

How do you spell ‘squirrel’ again?

That’s it.  Masterpieces by my modern, digital kids.

I am pleased that, with support from school and home, the kids are comfortable enough to use Pixie quickly and successfully.  Pretty cool.  And these skills? All transferable–can be used for this contest or another or something down the road.

Happy bookmark creating!

fyi: Thanks to The Washington Post’s KidsPost for hosting this and other kid-happy contests and for being just so . . . awesome.  And thanks to Tech4Learning (creators of Pixie) for also being just so. . . awesome.