Archive for the ‘Wall Street Journal Profile’ Category

An avalanche of orders these past ten days

Friday, November 6th, 2009

An avalanche of orders came in following The Wall Street Journal profile! If I turned away from the computer for a minute, four orders would pop up!  If I left my office for a cup of coffee, a dozen filled the screen!  Again, thank you Wall Street Journal and its subscribers!

Many of the  orders came from grandparents (not surprising as my profile appeared in the Retirement section of The Journal) who ordered multiple copies for grandchildren.  My sturdy oak kitchen table became packaging headquarters for the next ten days.  There I assembled priority packages stuffed with reviews, a times tables diploma, learning aids and workbooks. 

My graphic artist and I just designed bookmarks (we copied the design from the header on this blog) and included one in each package.  Not only would these bookmark the page for your child but I hoped the colors used on the circus figures would inspire your child to color in the pages of  the workbook.   On the reverse  side, we printed the ODD/EVEN rule of multiplication in both English and Spanish. 

I am constantly looking to design products that will appeal to your child. The last page of the workbook has a black-and-white diploma but I decided to design this in color and include one with each workbook.  I wanted the diploma to be cute, colorful and suitable for framing.  I imagine many have been framed, pinned on a bulletin board or taped to the fridge.

Mastering the multiplication tables is a HUGE milestone for your child and should be commemorated.  I tell parents at book fairs to frame this diploma, a very important diploma, because without this, there would be no Cal State, UCLA or Harvard diploma on your son or daughter’s wall someday.

The times tables are the building block of mathematics.  Mastery of these is essential to your child’s success. Learning to discover patterns develops critical thinking skills that will serve your child in all other  disciplines.  When your child graduates cum laude,  you can look back on this very first diploma and smile.