As with many things, a simple idea started Creative Toys. Pat Tanis was an elementary school teacher in 1985 when she realized that what her students could use was a way to re-enforce what they had been learning throughout the day. That was when Pat had the idea to make a flash card game that could provide a way for kids to be educationally entertained. With that idea Pat started her company Creative Toys and invested her time and money on developing the flash card game that she envisioned.

At that time Pat did not have the convenience of computers as we do now, so she worked hard for almost a year to gather all the information for the cards and to create a card deck that would be challenging. The game had 7 categories and 52 cards with over 700 hundred questions. In the years that followed she sold thousands of them to teachers and parents all around the United States.

Fast forwarding to the Digital Era, Pat found herself a fan of Apple products and in particularly her new iPhone. It did not take her long to realize that Educational Challenge could be something that could live again, as an app.