Doodle4Google Contest

If you haven't heard, Google has a really cool design contest going on right now for school aged children in grades K-12 . Doodle4Google contest is exactly what it sounds like, the kids get to "Doodle for Google". Cool huh? It gets cooler... Not only is this contest for public, and private schools, it's also for homeschools too!

The Doodle4Google contest is based around the theme, "What If...?" What if all people could live harmoniously together? What if there were no hunger? What if...? Your kids decide, what if, in Googles cool design contest, and put their ideas into not only words, but art too!

The following will give you all the needed info and details on how to sign up, when, where, curriculum, etc.

Getting started - First thing to do, is go to the Doodle4Google sign up page, and sign up! The registration form is simple and easy to fill out. I have already clarified with Google that homeschools are accepted, and Google has added into their rules that homeschools can participate.

Registration Deadline - The registration deadline is, March 28, 2008.

Doodle Entry Deadline - Deadline for having your doodle designs in to Google is, April 12, 2008, (Entries must be post marked by 11:59 pm that day)

Entry Mailing Address - Address to mail entries to is:
Google Inc.
Doodle 4 Google competition
PO BOX 391000
Mountain View, CA 94039-1000

ALL entries MUST be mailed! Google will not accept entries any other way.

Curriculum - Google has put together a curriculum to help you with this project. You can look over the curriculum at Googles, "Information for schools" section. The curriculum is broken into 4 grade categories, with tons of resources. Some of the resources I had never heard of before, and they are some nice sites, full of all sorts of helpful school links, resources, printables, lesson plans, etc! They also have logo templates for you to download and use to help the kids with their designs.

Design Guidelines - Google says the following as far as design Guidelines:

The doodle should be presented on a white, landscape sheet of 8.5 x 11 inch paper.

You can download the Google logo template from our Lesson Resources page.

The winning doodle will be displayed on our U.S. homepage, so the Google logo should be clearly visible and recognizable.

The doodle can be in pencil, crayons, felt tip or paint, or can be done using computer drawing or design software.

Unfortunately, we can't accept entries which use additional materials to create 3D effects.

Please encourage your students to create original designs. Be inspired by Dennis, but don't recreate his designs.

Our kids found it cool that they can do a graphic design, or a design with tradition paper, and coloring utensils!

A little about Dennis Hwang, Googles original Doodler... Dennis is 29 years old, and started Doodling for Google in 2000 after college. To read Dennis Hwang's full story, just go to, "Doodle4Googles Original Doodler"

So if you homeschool, why not sign your kids up for this neat contest? They will love it, and you'll have fun watching what they create too!