Toys for Little Makers

Saul Griffith has published a list of toys that help kids build important life skills - not the usual educational toy subjects, but skills everyone needs. I happen to agree with this list, nothing depresses me more than shoppers who ask for an "educational toy - something that teaches the ABCs!" I much prefer showing people toys that teach the skills outlined on this list.   I'm in the process of adding toys from our store to the categories Mr Griffith has outlined. Watch for them here, and posted in the store.

We Had a Party!

Last Thursday night we had our open house party. I like to hold this event on the 4th of December, Independent's Day - a day for celebrating independent businesses. In my mind, it's a huge movement with parties at book stores, toy stores, hardware stores and every other small local retailer in every town in America. I'm still waiting for the network news to get in touch with me, but anyway, we celebrated. Andy Z did his show, we packed the under six set in like a nightclub on Saturday night and rocked the house to Frosty the Snowman. Cat in the Hat made an appearance, our friends from Zoob and Blue Orange showed off their wares and we had a great evening.

Golden Apple Rep Day WOW!

We had an amazing day! Over a hundred teachers lined up starting at 9:00 for our big Rep Day event. The weather cooperated, with mildly blazing sunshine and our five years of experience hosting this event paid off. Crowd control was great, check-out time was reduced to an amazing 45 minutes, teachers had fun, reps had fun, employees had fun and everyone went home happy, though some of us were exhausted and happy.