CIWC 2026 Theme

CIWC is designed to promote students' language and comprehension skills and their ability to apply reasoning and logic. It also encourages students to use creative writing, drawing on their imagination to convey meaning through imagery, narrative, and drama in their written words. Students will follow rules of writing structure combined with imagination to create stories that entertain and engage readers.

Theme - Stories of Kindness

Participants will be provided with scenarios that require characters to demonstrate empathy and compassion. Students craft narratives that explore these themes, highlighting the transformative power of understanding and kindness in various situations. This contest encourages creative expression and the exploration of empathetic interactions through storytelling.

• Skills development in language and literacy is critical to student success. Strong oral and written language foundations are necessary to support more complex skills such as critical thinking and problem-solving.
• The expectations in this contest align well with the language curriculum.
• This contest focuses on both reading and writing with emphasis on the three areas: foundations of language (spelling, vocabulary, grammar, fluency and language conventions), comprehension and understanding of text, and thirdly, composition - expressing and creating text.
• The evaluation rubric used in the contest provides further details on how the student’s work is evaluated and graded.

CONTEST SCHEDULE & ELIGIBILITY

• Contest Duration: 75 Minutes
• Eligibility: Grades 3-8
• Contest Dates: April 1-12, 2026

CONTEST LEVELS & FORMAT

• Three levels - Grades 3/4, 5/6 and 7/8
• Format: Online test comprising of 2 sections:
• Section A: Answer multiple choice questions related to 2 short comprehension passages as provided in the test
• Section B: Rewrite a given historical event, assuming robots were present at that event and advanced technology was used.
• IMP: we are looking for original ideas and will check for plagiarism.
• The word limit for Section B and the difficulty level of the comprehension passages in Section A will vary as per the contest level.

All contest participants are eligible for the following awards:

• Gold Awards: Top 1% of students for each contest level. The award includes a customized medal & e-certificate.
• Silver Awards: Top 2-3% of students for each contest level. The award includes a customized medal & e-certificate.
• Bronze Awards: Top 4-6% of students for each contest level. The award includes a customized medal & e-certificate.
• Honors Award: Top 7-10% of students for each contest level. The award includes a customized medal & e-certificate.
• Certificate of participation: Given to all participants​.

* Because of the resources, CKSTEM will not pay for the international shipping to the schools. Awards will be sent to Canadian students, including schools and all other paid students. Students will also have an opportunity to join us in an award ceremony in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA).

School Registrations: School teachers are responsible for proctoring students in school. Contest for a school grade must be proctored at the same time. If students take the contest at different times, only the first set of students will be considered for the awards. Up to 15 minutes of variation in start time is acceptable.

Individual Registrations: CKSTEM will proctor students who enroll for the contests directly with CKSTEM. Students are expected to use two devices with working cameras. Students must take the contest on a laptop and share the camera from this device on Zoom. The Second device is required to show the room from a different angle on Zoom. Honesty is the best policy. CKSTEM will provide multiple slots for the students to choose from during the contest period.

• If you are a school staff interested in participating, you can find the registration package here. You may also contact us at info@ckstem.org. All contests are free for school registrations. We need a minimum of 5 students for school registrations.
• If you are an individual participant, you can enroll here. You must first create an account if you don't have it at our contest portal already. You can find instructions on how to create your account at https://www.competitivekids.org/blog/registration. There is a fee of 20 CAD for individual students.

You can download the Canadian Innovation Contests (CIC) brochure from here.

You can download the CIWC practice questions from here.