Scholar’s Choice

You know how in Vegas casinos pump in oxygen and maintain the sense of ‘daylight’ all day and all night to keep people gambling? Scholar’s Choice must do something like that for teachers. As soon as they’re in there, it’s like trying to get a five-​year-​old out of Willy Wonka’s factory.
All of a sudden, every workbook becomes a must-​have, every sticker sheet becomes something they can’t live without, even boxes of plastic chips showing different times of the day become mandatory teacher tools for survival. But here’s the kicker –all of these things are outrageously expensive!
It *is* a cute store with some fun stuff in it, but holy moly, you realize just how expensive it gets to run a classroom. Staff are friendly and happy to dole out deals if you sign up for their membership club thing.

Came to this store with one of my BFFs who teaches at a high school. I’d seen a couple of these stores before in Ottawa, but I never bothered to venture inside until I came to the location at Mic Mac.
Basically, this store is like a haven for teachers: it’s got educational toys and games for school-​aged children, as well as a healthy supply of workbooks, science sets (and K’nex type stuff), and those really quant and cute classroom décor items that you probably saw in your own teacher’s classrooms back in the day– decorative letters, borders, and those wipe-​off/​sticker calendars.
The store definitely focuses on merch for younger students (I doubt high schoolers care much about puppets or «lost tooth» charts– unless you count wisdom teeth ;D). That said, my friend likes the selection of classroom décor items, ’cause those bulletin boards in classrooms can look pretty drab if not for the decorative paper and fancy, picturesque borders. and there were a few science kits that were helpful for her class.
The products here aren’t exclusively for teachers (though as far as I know teachers get a pretty good discount on purchases) — parents will likely be interested in the variety of grade-​appropriate workbooks, especially if they’re looking to get their kids hooked on phonics or if their child needs a little extra help in math class. And educational toys and games don’t hurt either.