Oh my, what a week! It”s a short week for us Swedes (yes, Toca Boca is a Swedish company) because of Easter. And a short week usually means an intense week, doesn”t it?

Yours truly – Paulina – has been busy preparing the annual World Autism Awareness Day on Monday, April 2. Toca Store was free for a day to celebrate the day, and the amazing Shannon Rosa wrote an equally amazing guest post here in our blog about her autistic son Leo and his love of iPads, apps and Toca Boca. We participated in Technology in Special Education”s Appy App Party; check out the Toca Boca promo code contest here. We were also part of Muslim Friendly Apps” and iHelp SN Kids” App Parties. The events were all huge successes. Thanks Shannon, Siva, Emma and Lisa for great collaborations! In addition, I have handed out loads of promo codes to our apps with the help of the iMums, Pappas Appar, App-o-Mama, and Nicki (One of the Boys).

Björn, our CEO, who just moved to San Francisco to set up a new Toca Boca office, came back to visit us this week. (We”ve all missed him so!) We still haven”t seen him though, since he has been extremely busy meeting people, planning the future of Toca Boca, and making awfully important decisions. It all looks very promising!

Emil O, our producer and co-founder, has also been a busy bee providing feedback to all three teams, interviewing new potential Toca Boca employees, preparing the release of our latest digital toy Toca Kitchen Monsters, giving presentations, and doing great interviews.

What about our Office Manager Lina? She is looking for a new Stockholm office for the Toca Boca team. The team is growing and in need of office space that matches our level of creativity and lust for life. 🙂 Other things: sent lots of emails, coordinated our new translators, arranged a great After Work last Friday, and bought Easter eggs filled with candy (a Swedish tradition) to the whole team! Thanks, Lina!

And the rest of the team? They are still working hard on finishing our three super secret digital toys. Coding and animating prototypes, discussing different solutions, reviewing, redesigning, demoing, testing the prototypes on kids, reviewing even more and so forth and so on… Lots of fun!

And what is coming up next? The release of a FREE special edition of Toca Kitchen – Toca Kitchen Monsters – of course! The app is released today, April 5. I recommend all adults and parents to read the “Letter from the play designer”, which can be reached via the “For Parents” link on the start page of the app. In the letter, the play designer, Jens Peter (JP) describes the ideas behind the digital toy and ways in which the toy can be used by both kids and parents. We are also arranging a fantastic monster naming contest next week, April 8-13. Join/like our Facebook Page to learn more (on Monday, April 8).

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Paulina