Taking kids to a toy store is dangerous, right? Well a few weeks ago, we took the kids to Creative Kidstuff’s Edina location and let them run around playing with toys they’d never seen before. I we didn’t have to say “don’t touch.” In fact, the employees encouraged them to play and observed them and asked questions. And then paid them!
Creative Kidstuff ran a Kids’ Council in their stores, with different age ranges (from 1 to 7+) in different stores. They had a dozen toys and games out to see what kids and parents thought of them. Employees observed what the kids did with the items. Parents filled out surveys about the products – pros, cons, value for the price.
Between the two of them, Grace and Connor were able to test seven of the 12 toys. Ellie was fussy and we forgot a pacifier so Mark spent almost the whole time walking her in the hall. Which meant I was trying to run back and forth between the two kids filling out surveys. If When we do this again, I’ll either take them separately to two dates/locations or make sure we can keep Ellie happy so each adult can watch one kid.
This was the first station we tried, and the only photo we managed to get before Ellie’s meltdown. It’s an art kit called Ready Set Cut and was way too hard for Connor so I quickly talked him into moving on to something else. Grace had a great time making her princess crown but was quite nonplussed when it eventually broke.
The cheapest item we tried, at $10, was Yummy Dough. Basically it was play dough that you baked when finished playing with it. Grace said this was one of her favorite stations of the night but when we baked it at home, we discovered it did not taste very good. I’ll stick with homemade play dough.
They had two really cool “multi-solution” puzzles by P’Kolino. At first I thought they were too hard for Connor but once he saw the picture on the box, we went to town on the robot and bug puzzles. He seemed to really enjoy them. Grace was too busy playing dress up to have any interest in the puzzles.
Connor tried Automoblox, which is a wooden car that comes apart and you have to figure out how to put it together. It didn’t hold his interest long. We somehow missed the Rivers Roads and Rails game, which is unfortunate because it sounds right up Connor’s alley (no pun intended).
My favorite toy, and the one I’d be most likely to buy, was the Smart Projector from Ingenio. Both kids could use it. It teaches words in English and Spanish and drawing and writing skills.
Connor was not interested in the tool box and bench. Strange because when we visit my parents, he spends the entire time playing with this tool bench. We also didn’t get to try Design and Drill because it was always busy.
Grace turned up her nose at the Cozy Cottage because there was only one little animal in it, and she declared that to be boring. We missed the Pigz Up Stacking Game.
They both enjoyed the Sort and Snap Color Match game from Melissa & Doug but I could see it losing it’s allure very quickly.
At the end of the night, Connor bought a small fire truck with his $5 gift card. Grace chose foaming, colored bath soap.
That is one of my favorite stores! I didn’t know they had these, but my kids are too old! Boo!
So glad the kids were able to take part, and have time to play with some new toys!