Keep the family busy with these creative kids competitions!
Are you stuck with bored children at home? Creative kids competitions are a great way to keep them busy – but will also put their brains to work. Here’s a few fun kids competitions they might like to try… don’t forget to check the comments too as you’ll find more comps there!
NEW! Win a £50 Iceland voucher
Under 16s can create a wildflower crown to celebrate the coronation, and the best one will win a £50 Iceland voucher and Eden Project water bottle. Email up to three photos per child along with the child’s full name, age, postal address to communities@edenproject.com. Find out more at www.edenprojectcommunities.com – closing date is 23 April 2023.
Win a trip to Kerala
The third International Children’s painting competition 2023 is open worldwide and has prizes of 18 five-night trips to Kerala, plus 70 runners up prizes! Entrants should be age 4 to 16 (born between 01.01.2007 and 01.01.2019). The theme of the competition is ‘Kerala Village Life’ and children can use crayons, coloured pencils, paints or sketch pens and submit up to five entries. You can register now at keralatourism.org/contest/icpc (my referral link) but can’t upload artwork until 1 April 2023. Prizes are split between entrants from India, Kerala, and the rest of the world (find out more on the Prizes page)
T&Cs are here. Closing date is 30 September 2023.
Win Amazon vouchers & books
7-18 year olds are invited to enter the Humanimal Trust Creative Awards 2023, and create a piece of visual art or written work to celebrate the connections between all species.
Entries will be split into age four groups, 7-11 years, 12-14 years, 15-16 years, 17-18 years, at the time of closing date. Entries will be judged on how original the creation is, relevance to the theme of Connectivity and/or One Medicine, and the use of story writing, poetic, artistic, photographic or videographic techniques. There will be three prize winners in each age category – top prize winners in the two oldest categories will win a £250 Amazon voucher, in the two younger categories it’s a basket of books from ‘What on Earth Publishing’, plus all winners get various books and a certificate.
Find all the details at humanimaltrust.org.uk. The closing date is 31 March 2023.
Win £5,000 for your school library
For the third year running, The Royal Mint are holding their annual short story competition for Primary school pupils aged 8 to 11. Children must submit a story of no more than 500 words on the theme of Crossing Continents. The winner will receive 1 x silver commemorative coin and a framed copy of their winning entry, illustrated by a professional Illustrator. The winner’s school will receive an award of £5,000 worth of vouchers for equipment and books to invest in their library. If the winner is home schooled, then prize will be donated to a public library. Four ‘runners-up’ entries will each receive 1 x silver commemorative coin and the five ‘highly commended’ will each receive 1 x base metal commemorative coin.
Find all the details on the Royal Mint website, and check out the T&Cs here. The closing date is 31 March 2023.
Win National Book Tokens
National Book Tokens’ Design a National Book Token competition encourages children of all ages to share their creativity – and their love for books and reading – by designing their own fabulous gift cards! A panel of judges will select a winner and runner-up in each of three age categories: up to 8 years, 9-12 years and 13-16 years. The theme of the competition is ‘Choosing to read’ and you can download the template here.
FIRST PRIZE in each age range wins £350/€380 National Book Tokens for the school, £100/€110 National Book Tokens for the pupil. SECOND PRIZE in each age range wins £200/€220 National Book Tokens for the school and £50 /€60 National Book Tokens for the pupil. All the National Book Tokens prizes will feature the winning designs! ONE OVERALL WINNER (chosen from the three first prize winners) will get a £10/€10 gift card in their design for every child in their class*, and the opportunity for their class to visit a real bookshop, virtually or in person, to spend their National Book Tokens.
Find out more at worldbookday.com/competition/design-a-nbt/ – closing date is 2 April 2023.

I regularly recommend www.toppsta.com as a fabulous place to win kids books, and you have a better chance of winning if you add reviews to your child’s account. Ask your children which books they’ve read recently – older kids will be fine to type up their own reviews, but for younger children you could ask them questions about the books and then type up the review yourself based on their answers. Help them expand their vocabulary and ask them to think of different adjectives – exciting, thrilling, fascinating, etc. – to describe the story and characters. Try asking Google or Alexa for synonyms!
Find out more about kids book competitions in my blog post Competitions for bookworms.
Other comping fun for kids
- If you don’t mind giving them a phone or tablet, set the kids to work on some instant wins! My son Ryland loves playing ‘spin to win’ free instant wins online – check my list of instant wins for the latest comps!
- If your child loves to write, there’s a great list of current UK writing competitions on the School Reading List website – which also includes public speaking competitions too.
- Moma.co.uk lists some nice arty kids competitions!
Do you have any more tips for keeping the kids busy comping while they’re stuck at home? Let me know in the comments.
Camp Beaumont are also running a competition to win a week’s stay at Skern Lodge in 2023 worth £899 and also a chance to win a free week at Camp Beaumont this summer – inclusive for ages 3-16 and running in over 45 UK locations. Simply enter your email address here: https://www.campbeaumont.co.uk/bounceback T&C’s apply, closing date 31/07/22
WordHound runs a monthly writing competition for kids aged 12 and under:
http://www.wordhound.co.uk/competitions
Every month there’s a different theme, it’s up to 300 words, and you can win books from guest authors plus sweets and stationery.
Lovely, thanks for sharing this info Angela!
For School Robot Competition, the correct link is https://www.ukras.org.uk/school-robot-competition/write
Thanks Tanya, I’ve updated those to ukras.org.uk! Looks like they must have lost ownership of the http://www.ukras.org domain they originally used!
Are you sure that “givebacklondon” competition is legitimate? .
I can’t find them registered as a charity, or any information on how entries will enable a free meal. They don’t seem to have any fixed address & they are requesting all details by post & no electronic records.
I might be wrong. (& hope I am) but I would suggest people look into this before deciding to send all their personal details to a random PO Box number, as this doesn’t seem right to me.
I’ve sent them an email to get some further information from them. It seems rather a lot of trouble to go to for a competition that isn’t genuine!
But a very simple way to create identity theft? .
As I said, I hope I’m wrong. But with no details on the people running it, or any registered charity number, or any fixed address & their website does absolutely nothing, other than ask for these “entries”, it all seems a little strange. How can sending a kids picture fund a meal?
Hopefully they can reassure you/us by providing more information.
Thanks.
Hi Di, I’ve tried to email and telephone the human relief foundation. I’ve had 1 email saying they would check (Monday this week) 1 telephone call converstation with them (Friday last week) saying that they would check on it. And….. no replies so far. I’ve now sent them 3 emails asking the same questions…..
Vegan Kids festival have announced the 2022 “Vegan Kids Festival Design a T-Shirt Competition” the competition aims to find the best Young designer from submitted designs and the winner will win tickets to the festival as well as see their design come to life as our main festival T-shirt for 2022.
To enter design your perfect Festival T-shirt and send your entries to fun@vegankidsfestival.co.uk designs can be created on a computer or by hand, simply send in a photo or your design.
For a full list of eligibility criteria and full terms and conditions please see https://www.vegankidsfestival.co.uk/tshirt-competition/
Young Designers aged 18 and under are eligible to enter.
Thanks for sharing Dana!
Do you know a child under 10 who loves #reading? We have a #competition for them!
Design a bookmark to win a Children 1st goody bag including books and a stash of their bookmark.
Find out how to enter http://children1st.org.uk/bookmark
Niche – For anyone visiting Father Christmas at the National Gallery in London, design your own Christmas card to win £100 to spend in the National Gallery shop https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/whats-on/meet-father-christmas/competition
Thanks Nikki!
can not enter the kiddy charts competition . Why?
I don’t really understand the question Favour – what have you got trouble with?
The reading competiton website is not opening
The direct link is at https://www.kiddycharts.com/summer-reading-challenge/
CD 15/8 kids to draw their sporting dream posters. Winner gets a mapped helix stationery set AND the chance to train with a top sports coach and GB medalist! https://m.facebook.com/MapedHelix/photos/a.913047192077655/4244481908934150/?type=3
Thanks Nikki!
Closes 30th June – Design a poster of your city of the future and win one of three £200 ethical superstore voucher. https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/competition/design-a-future-city-and-win-a-200-voucher-ethical-superstore-voucher/
I won this competition
Hi guys! Just seem this on Instagram to win a Plum Trampoline worth £1500 https://www.instagram.com/p/CNVRQeigy_9/
Need to enter by Saturday 10th of April by doing a move from the video
Hi Di, could you please let me know where we can get this promotional fruit shoot pack?? It is not in Asda.. many thanks for updating this blog..
I picked mine up in Tesco!
Fantastic.. thank you..
Hi Di, I am a follower of your Creative Kids competition since last September. It keeps my 6 years daughter quite busy during this time. She is happy to be KS1 winner in UK for Children of Lockdown conducted by Storychest, CO Awareness Competition conducted by Energy Networks, Pearson UK’s Twist on a Tale and to receive other misc prizes. Thank you for your effort and regular blog on kid’s competition.
This is great to hear Taniya – I’m so pleased she’s had such success!
Has anyone tried entering the 44 cats pasta comp? I submitted an entry but had no confirmation onscreen or email and dont want to resubmit in case it gets disqualified
Hi Kim! I’ve checked with the promoter and there’s no confirmation displayed – it just takes you back to the entry form I believe. If you’re concerned about your entry not being received, they’ve said it’s fine to submit it again!
Ah no thats great thanks! It did return to the entry form so if thats what its supposed to do then thats fine
Hi Im home schooled at the moment in the uk as im in the waiting list for a school so can I still do it because there is some money that goes forward to the school depending on if I win or not …
Hi. My 8 year old niece is very good at designing. Ranging from clothes, to home furnishings and interior decor. Can you please let me know if there are any competitions that she enter or courses. Thanks in advance.
Pls Is is it only for uk kids or other countries?
The comps on SuperLucky are only UK entries unless stated otherwise I’m afraid!
Great list…I am having a bookmark competition on my blog…..would be great if you can include it in your list
Do you have a link Krisha?
Hi does anyone have any spare paper for the iPad competition for the children?
Hi Di,
Just saw this on Twitter which people might to enter. https://twitter.com/Sewsofia/status/1248891923709952005?s=19
“Get your kids to have a go at drawing, colouring in or creating a bag (Easter baskets count!) this weekend and they could win a pencil case! PS. So far I have 3 entries, one of whom is my niece!! Google ‘coloring sheet bag’ to get them started”
Great list Di – just to update all the free packs have now been claimed for the Antalis Ipad competition
Thanks Nikki – I’ve added that information in! Did you manage to enter it? I have some spare paper I can post to you!
I’ve only just seen this ♀️ if you still think there’s time then it would be fab if you still have some spare – understand if you don’t anymore 🙂 x
Fab, thanks Neill – I’ve added that one to the list!