Doodle 4 Google 2013

I love google doodles!  I even have a whole pinterest board devoted to my favorites! A few years ago I found out about the doodle4google annual contest for students (click HERE for information), and my 3rd graders entered the contest. They had such a blast - and I was blown away by their amazing doodles. Last year I participated with 500+ kindergarten students, which was very challenging given the theme - if I could travel in time I'd visit.....most of them wanted to visit the land of the dinosaurs!  They had a lot of fun, and it was really amazing to see what some of them came up with. I actually didn't get to submit all of them - some did not return the required permission form, some didn't meet the guidelines - but there were quite a few that I submitted. This year I will be participating with K - 6th grade classes, and I can't wait! I am especially excited to see what the older kids are going to come up with as I've never worked on this project with that age group before.  I set up a GOOGLE ALERT and received information about the theme HERE , which I hope is accurate - it isn't from google and they still say to check back in January of 2013 on the official google page - but I'm sure hoping this is it! I am planning how I will introduce this, which videos I will show to the kids to motivate them, and what materials I will let them use to create their doodles. I am also setting aside blocks of time to work with small groups from each class on this project. I would really like the older kids to use art/illustrator software. Anyone have any suggestions? I will let the younger grades use crayons - markers just don't work and make a mess.  I will also have to decide which google template they will use and I will probably let the older grades choose which one to use. There are usually four or five options, i.e. the regular logo, a dotted outline version, etc. I found this really cool video below that I will use to introduce the project to the students. It does a really good job of explaining what a doodle is. I will also show them the video google puts out every year that explains the contest. It is always available on the website. Check back for more posts as we work on this project. This is also a really neat LINK to a video - it is over an hour long  though - featuring the artists behind the doodles discussing how they create them.