(Home School Legal Defense Association, October 1, 2022)
We’re celebrating homeschoolers’ creative excellence by offering students the chance to win up to $500 in prizes in two different contests! Both our essay and art contests are now open for entry through December 1. So lean into your sense of innovation, enjoy the creative process and be one of the 21 students in each contest to win a prize.
All contest profits go to our charitable arm, HSLDA Compassion, which provides for families facing hard times. When you donate to enter the contest, you help families afford the educational materials they need!
Art Contest Themes:
Category 1 (ages 7-10):
Starry Night Over the Rhone, Van Gogh
Implement at least one of these qualities from this masterpiece into your entry: nighttime scene, impasto quality, primarily navy and yellow palette.
Category 2 (ages 11-14):
Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog, Friedrich
Implement at least one of these qualities from this masterpiece into your entry: deep aerial perspective, use of a single human figure, highly contrasted color palette.
Category 3 (ages 15-19):
A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, Seurat
Implement at least one of these qualities from this masterpiece into your entry: pointillism technique, social scene as subject, gentle pastel palette.
Essay Contest Themes:
Category 1 (ages 7-10): From Gutenberg’s printing press to today’s smartphone, many significant inventions have changed the way we live. But there is still so much room for ingenuity! If you were to invent something new, what would it be, what would it do, and why would you invent it? Explain in a descriptive essay.
Category 2 (ages 11-14): Suppose you are stranded alone on a desert island where there is no electricity, no cell tower signal, or any other sign of civilization. You have a stockpile of food and help is on its way—in a couple months—but in the meantime you must survive. Explain in a persuasive essay what three inventions would you want to find washed up onto the shore with you and why.
Category 3 (ages 15-19): Imagine that you wake up just inside the entrance to an unfamiliar cave with no memory of how you arrived there. You sit up, look around, and notice a blow-dryer and garden spade. You feel inside your pocket and find a small spool of wire. As you finger the unfamiliar items, everything comes flooding back to you! In a narrative essay, explain how the three items (blow-dryer, spade, and wire) tell the story of how you came to be in the cave.
For more information about HSLDA’s contests, or to enter a contest, click here.