**COLORING CONTEST IS CLOSED: Fantastic job everyone! The coloring contest has ended — check out the winners here — but you can still download and color the sheet for fun.
Welcome to Minnesota Parent’s first-ever coloring contest!
I’m so excited to share this original coloring sheet I created for all of you on behalf of Minnesota Parent.
You might be wondering where this came from since I typically write about different products I’ve used with my kiddos.
It’s simple really. With a majority of us working remotely and attempting to fill the big shoes of our children’s teachers — well, not actually fill them, but to assist with remote learning throughout the quarantine — we felt we had to do something special for families.
And when it comes to keeping my three kids busy (age 7, 4 and 4), I’m big into art activities. Almost every day they’re with me, we work on some kind of art or craft project. I even have an entire bookshelf in my dining room stocked with art supplies.
So when Minnesota Parent editor Sarah Jackson asked me what ideas I had to help parents, I was ready! We chatted remotely via Slack (our saving grace during this pandemic) and settled on a single-page coloring contest with prizes to help families bust the boredom at home!
We found the perfect image of the iconic Spoonbridge and Cherry sculptural fountain in the Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Then, using my illustration skills, I took the image outside and spent some time in the sunshine tracing it out on paper. Then I scanned it in and recreated it into the crisp coloring sheet you see below (click on the image to print the coloring sheet).
Then Sarah found a collection of epic prizes for the coloring contest to sweeten the deal. How cool is that?
FIRST PLACE: Toys!
Win our Never Be Bored Toy Collection! With a retail value of $130, these are some of the toys we tried out during our annual Toy Test — all in their original packaging — including:
• Sparkle Marble Run, a 103-piece creator set for ages 4 and up — courtesy of MindWare, based in Roseville;
• Playviators airplane, featuring a weight-responsive propeller that spins as the plane is tilted, for ages 3 and up — courtesy of ABC & Toy Zone in Chanhassen and Fat Brain Toys;
• Mozi Flow Ring, a marvelous set of 13 interconnected steel coil rings that move along your arm like a wearable, animated Slinky, for ages 5 and up — courtesy of Mischief Toys in St. Paul.
• Planet, an award-winning environmental board game for ages 8 and up, featuring unique 3D planet cores and habitat-creation challenges — courtesy of Games by James at the Mall of America;
• Bubble Bombs, a new set of six bath bombs with prizes inside — courtesy of Two Sisters Spa in Eden Prairie.
SECOND PLACE: Puzzles!
Twin Cities jigsaw makers Puzzle Twist are experiencing super-high demand right now, but they still donated not one but two 500-piece puzzles — Star of the North and MinneSNOWta. But these Something’s Amiss editions aren’t just ordinary puzzles. Each one is always a bit different from what you see on the box. Can you still complete the puzzle and find all the image changes? (Don’t worry, you can find the answers online at puzzletwist.com.)
THIRD PLACE: Magazines!
UPDATE: We’ve also added the following prizes for five honororable mentions / younger entrants!
*Learning Laces from Learning Resources
*Shimmer Stars Jelly Bean the Cat
*Precious Ponies Set from Lakeshore Learning
**COLORING CONTEST IS CLOSED: Fantastic job everyone! The coloring contest has ended — check out the winners here — but you can still download and color the sheet for fun.
Want in?
To enter, print out the PDF of our coloring sheet and have your kid color it.
Then take a photo of your child holding the completed sheet and email it to [email protected] with the subject line #coloringathome.
Please include your child’s first name, city and age. Families can submit multiple entries, but please submit only one entry per child.
Post your photo on our Facebook post about this contest or tag Minnesota Parent on Instagram @mnparent!
Select entries/kids may be featured in a future issue of Minnesota Parent magazine From Our Readers department!
Deadline
Send all entries by 5 p.m. Friday, May 8. (We’ll announce the winners on Facebook on Monday, May 11, 2020.)
We can’t wait to see your kiddos’ completed coloring sheets!
Valerie Moe is the creative director for Minnesota Parent magazine. She lives in Bloomington with her 7-year-old daughter, Olivia, and 4-year-old twins, Jacob and Seraphina. Follow her on Instagram and Facebook.
This blog is truthful and based on personal experience with the products or items mentioned. It doesn’t have sponsors, and no one paid to receive positive reviews of their products. All of the links provided are for your convenience and are not “affiliate links” — Valerie doesn’t receive payment or kickbacks if people purchase products based on her recommendations.
