Coming Soon To The Ark: Party & Event Center!

We're Gearing Up To Unveil Our BRAND NEW Party & Event Center!

Coming Soon To Our Presidio Heights Location, The Ark Party & Event Center Will Be THE Place To Have That Next Birthday Bash, Kids Yoga Class, Or Craft Party.

Stay Tuned For More Details!

Join Us For The 2015 Sacramento Street Outdoor Market May 16th!

It's that time of the year again!  Saturday, May 16th, head on over to the Lovely Sacramento Street Shopping District for our annual outdoor market celebration. 

We'll be having great deals and sidewalk sales along with our fellow small businesses.  This is a great opportunity to score all those unique, fun birthday gifts, baby shower presents, and great toys for the 2015 holiday season.

Don't forget to check out the delicious food trucks, restaurants, and cafes to enjoy a yummy outdoor lunch with your family.  Take this opportunity to discover all that Sacramento Street has to offer!

The Ark's Toytastic Year In Review

As another year of toys, smiles, and giggles come to a close here at The Ark, we wanted to look back at some of this year's best memories.  From our week-long customer appreciation festivities to visits from Santa Claus himself, it has surely been a busy year for us.  And it's not over yet!  There's still a few more hours left of 2014 to go and even more to talk about in our year-end blog post.

Trending Toys of 2014

Last year's Rainbow Loom craze helped usher in excitement for one of this year's most talked about toys, The Loopdedoo.  Winning awards left and right, the Loopdedo introduced kids to a fresh new way to design their accessories.  Proving itself a popular next step up from the rainbow loom, the LoopDeDoo became one of the most in-demand birthday party gifts in 2014.  Soon thereafter we started to carry the Loopdeloom, an even more fashion-forward looming toy that included trendy colors and modern patterns.

Switching to the world of kids decor, our extremely popular A-Cup Sailboats mobile held strong as our #1 selling baby mobile.  The USA's recent America's Cup win helped put this sophisticated kids decor item back on the map, pushing it to become our biggest online seller to date.  But this isn't your everyday, run of the mill sailboat mobile.  What makes the Authentic Model's A-Cup mobile special is that is was modeled after REAL America's Cup racing yachts from the 1930s!  Swing by your local Ark location to get a true up-close view of this intricate mobile made from solid wood and real cotton sails. 

Just in time for the holiday season!  We were so excited to start carrying award-winning toys by Build & Imagine.  Featuring such popular products as "Day At The Beach" and "Malia's Beach House", these special building toys can be described as a fusion of Magna-Tiles, classic dollhouse play, magnetic dress-up dolls, and fashion design toys.  We've found that toys like these inspire an interest in a wide range of subjects and activities, like art and design, storytelling, and architecture. 

Memorable Store Events

We're definitely party people here.  So we love to find ways to get both customers and our staff involved throughout the year.  We threw a lot of cool events this year, with our first annual Halloween Contest being one of our most successful events!  We had well over a 100 entries and gave out prizes for categories like Best Overall Costume, Frozen Inspired Costume, Most Creative and Dynamic Duo.  

Later on in the year we partnered with American Express and locally-owned businesses across the country to celebrate the importance of shopping small.  Using the hashtag, #ShopSmall, we used our social networks to connect with fellow small toy stores as well as getting the word out about shopping local in the Bay Area.  Our lovely sales associate Laura even took the time to create this awesome #ShopSmall photo for our Facebook page.

This is just the tip of the iceberg for us!  Stay tuned for even more tid bits about our most favorite memories and toys of the year.

It's Official: The Ark is San Francisco's BEST TOY STORE of 2014!

We've done it again, and we could've of done it without YOUR support, San Francisco!  The Ark Toys has been named "Best Toy Store" of 2014 by San Francisco Bay Guardian readers in their renowned Best of The Bay issue.  This is a very special honor as this marks the end of The San Francisco Bay Guardian and their influential reader's poll issue, Best of The Bay. 

This isn't just an accolade for our store, but a symbol of continued support for local, independently-owned Bay Area toy stores.  We look forward to providing San Francisco residents with our signature unique selections, timeless wooden toys, birthday party gift-wrapping, and more fun store events come 2015.

In the mean time, learn more about our upcoming Halloween event where you can find free giveaways hidden throughout our stores, our annual costume contest, and delicious candy to get your trick or treating adventure started!

Meet Nicolas! The Plush Musical Wolf Kids Love

And WE love Nicolas too!  This whimsical toddler toy is one of the most unique activity plush you'll come across, and he quickly became a big customer favorite since his debut.

So what makes Nicolas so different?

Whimsical french baby toy company, Lilliputiens, is known for producing cool interactive plush toys that appeal to babies and tots 6 months and up.  They even feature a colorful cast of characters, ranging from Arnold the Pirate Hippo, Jef the puppy dog, Ophelie the chicken, and even more plush friends.

Each character comes in a variety of different designs, such as soft rattles, puppets, musical plush, and colorful teether toys.  This particular Lilliputiens toy definitely stands out for its truly unique design and features.  Simply pull up Nicolas' corduroy top hat to switch on an instrumental version of "Humpty Dumpty", while a charming little plush bunny awaits inside his hat to say hello!

But what's our most favorite feature of Musical Nicolas?

His face illuminates with soft twinkling lights as the music plays!  Making it a great sleep aid for babies and tots, this special plush wolf has been a regular favorite for baby shower gifts, first birthdays, and holiday presents.

Nicolas also promotes gross motor skill development and sensory stimulation.  The pull-string top hat helps improve large arm movements, plus young kids are treated to a visual and musical experience as they enjoy a twinkling music show.

What was your favorite plush toy growing up?

The Very Colorful World Of Soft Baby Blocks

Toy blocks that crisp and crackle to the touch are just one of the many beneficial features of today's soft toys for baby.  One of our favorite baby building toys, the wonder soft blocks set, does just that and even more cool stuff. 

Tot's really enjoy the neat sounds and tactile feeling of their favorite soft blocks, but these special German-made wonder blocks introduces a range of intriguing features to help stimulate the senses as well, such as mesh-like textures, ribbed surfaces, soft reflective windows, velcro blocks, a captivating color palette to stimulate color recognition, and a sturdy design for easy stacking.

Soft blocks with little windows and doors that allow kids to discover new images is a fun way to help improve object recognition, like pets, people, natural objects like leaves and trees, elements of a home, and more.

So when is the right age to introduce soft blocks?

Soft baby toys are designed for a variety of age ranges, and early soft block sets are good for kids who're just discovering their clutching and object placement abilities.  Children as young as just 6m can benefit from soft block sets from Apple Park, HABA and Lamaze, just to name a few.  Our favorite wonder blocks set is actually designed for children ages 6m and up and comes with its own accompanying carrying case for quick and easy storage too.

An introduction to more involved wooden building sets, soft blocks help kids improve their manual dexterity and creative thinking to eventually create more complex structures later on.

What are your most early memories of using building toys?  LEGO?  Traditional wooden block sets?  Let us know in the comments below!

Encouraging Imaginative Play With The Chalet Dollhouse

Dollhouses have been a staple of Childhood play for generations of kids.  Allowing children to decorate and arrange their own dollhouses helps inspire creative ideas, like an early fascination with architecture, design, art, and even creative writing.  Dollhouses often serve as a stage for kids to set up their own original plays, craft their dream homes, and even act out ideas of what they want to be when they grow up!

Today there's a wide selection of dollhouse designs to choose from, ranging from that traditional Victorian style to more modern houses with minimalist decor.  Falling into a category of it's own is the sustainable Chalet style dollhouse with that cool and earthy color palette, modern skylights and open design.  These dollhouses aren't confined to one look either and are designed to be arranged in a variety of ways.

There's a lot of room for imaginative play and creativity here.  Kids can choose whether their cascading stairs should belong in or outside the house, turn the dollhouse itself into separate condos, decide on the feng shui of the accompanying furniture, or even add compatible parts to create an epic sprawling metropolis.

Like creative writing, painting, and theater, imaginative play with dollhouses can serve as a creative outlet for kids of all different ages.  Wee ones who're still developing their logical thinking skills, creativity and object recognition naturally take to dollhouses because they allow hem to work out and understand the world around them.

While kids who're growing a little older may see dollhouses as a platform for working out more complex and creative ideas, like coming up with dollhouse decoration plans built around color or themes.  Kids naturally start to pick out their own dollhouse furniture, accessories, and miniature dolls to create more involved worlds.

What are some of your favorite dollhouse memories?  Let us know in the comment section below!