And we say that with a history of silly that’s virtually unmatched. You slip on this pair of lens-less glasses with the tiny bucket and ball on a string attached, and try, while looking like a demented chipmunk, to swing the little ball on its cord and drop it into the cup. In red and blue plastic, you will be filmed on a smart phone, it will be put on social media, and you will be famous for it for the rest of your life. Best to order a couple so you’re not alone.

Before there were stations to play at, when gameboys were just boys who played games, when fun was spelled “wheeee,” there was the Etch A Sketch®, the original small-motor-skills trainer. This classic, legendary design device allowed kids to create perfect right-angles in their pursuit of anything from simple boxes to full Frank Lloyd Wright house designs. Advanced sketchers with mad knob skills could even bend those lines. Return with us now to the thrilling days of yesteryear and try it for yourself, or give it to a kid. Measures approx 9" x 7" x 1", and you still just shake it to erase.

Based on drawings from Da Vinci's Codex Atlanticus, this Pathfinders catapult kit uses a pair of bent wooden arms as springs to launch clay balls (included) over (4) meters at enemy fortifications (not included, go make your own enemies). The assembled model will be approx 9" tall on a 10" x 7-1/4" base. Made from pre-cut, untreated wood from sustainable forests, and built with pegs for added strength and verisimilitude. A 2013 Creative Child Magazine Top Toy of the Year Winner and a great resource for STEM activities. For ages 12 and up.

Cutest drone ever. Shaped, and sized, like a chicken egg, just over 2-1/2” tall . Opens up to a 5” wide quad-rotor drone with a range of approx 100 feet, and it’ll fly for approx 6 minutes on a 45-minute charge. Features auto-hover and 360-degree roll, headless remote and (3) speeds. Includes charging cord, spare blades and a small screwdriver. Has a 2.4 GHz transmitter that uses (2) “AAA” batteries.

From the harmonica kings themselves at the Hohner company, comes this 4" long, 3-octave plus, plastic harmonica, in C, the people's key. We'll pick one in an attractive shade of red, green, blue, yellow or whatever color shows up next, and send it in a little vinyl case.

The possibilities are endless with this very familiar-looking building-block tape. Yes, Virginia, it’s flexible rubber tape with bumps that will mate with the world’s most popular interlocking building blocks. Rhymes with toaster waffles. Among other things, it means your little brother won’t be able to knock the house you just built off the table. Tape comes in 39” rolls at 5/8” wide, and you’ll get (2) rolls from our selection in red, pink, light green, orange, purple, gray and black. And there’s 3M adhesive on the back of it.

It’s called Thinking Putty® because while you do whatever you want with it, your brain relaxes and opens up to all kinds of creative thinking. Need it? Yes. And you can also knead it. Or bounce it, bend it, tear it, stretch it, snap it, pop it. Pick from the 3.2 oz of dark green magnetic Strange Attractor putty with iron filings infused in it, plus a 1/2” cubed rare earth magnet; the shimmering Mystifying Mermaid that changes colors from the heat of your hands; the sparkly and bounceable Dino Poop: the glow-in-the-dark, neon confetti and golden glitter filled Enchanting Unicorn; the heat morphing orange-to-pink Flamingo Feathers; or the Super Scarab, 3.2 oz. of color-shifting blue/purple/copper/red putty reminesent of Egyptian scarabs. Comes in a 4” dia x 1-3/8” tin.

You may well have wondered where the boneless chicken breasts in your local supermarket come from. The answer is from boneless chickens. And we have some life sized rubber models of the birds to prove it. Modeled from life, they are shown plucked and as they might appear hanging in the poultry store window. Seeing is believing, at least in Missouri, so get one and look.

More fun than a canned ham, this flip-top storage tin has a train set inside, with a plastic steam engine, tender, boxcar and caboose, as well as a 12-piece track that forms a 10" x 22" oval. You add a "AA" battery and you're the engineer. 

About 30-40 highly polished stones, all shiny, translucent, or brightly colored, ranging from 3/4" long to 1/8" long. Great for mosaics, jewelry, or aquariums.

2" flywheel in well made metal frame. The trick is the same as it has been for 100 years. Wind the string through the spindle, pull it firmly to set the flywheel spinning, and perform effortless balancing magic on pencil tips, string tightropes, and the like. We tend to forget that bicycles and aircraft navigation both rely heavily on gyroscopic principles. It's never too early to tell the kids. Besides, it's fun.

Imagine a not-unteletubbyish space guy, but with a couple sets of rotors in his head, and the ability to hover. Has sensors on his feet so he knows where the ground (our your hand) is, and he’ll keep hovering. Plus his blue eyes flash on and off, like a short, intergalactic Frank Sinatra. Measures 5” tall with a 5-1/2” rotor-span. Powered by an internal battery, rechargeable via a USB port with the included 10” cord. Run time is 4-5 mins. Ages 6+.

Here's a little music box to crank. These are really cute, with a very nice sound, and they're in clear acrylic cases so you, or impressionable youngsters, can watch them work. They measure 2-1/4"x 2" x 1-1/4" with a 7/8" crank. We'll pick one that plays When You Wish upon a Star, Row, Row, Row your Boat, Brahms' Lullaby, or Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. We won't pick the one that plays the score from Die Walküre because the wheel is just enormous.

Stick a coin on top of the fishy plate on this plastic coin bank and it triggers a Hiya Kitty inside to mew some cat noises, then peeks out and reaches out a paw to snatch the coin. The box, which is mysteriously made to look like an fruit crate, measures 4-3/4" x 4" x 3-1/2". You’ll need to add a couple of “AA” batteries but that’s the standard price of kitten cuteness today. CLICK HERE for video.

Squeeze this squishy version of the eight-legged tardigrade, aks moss piglet, aka water bear, and it takes up to (9) seconds to slowly morph back into shape while you feel your stress disappear like the cashews in a bowl of mixed nuts. Measures 4-1/2” long in green with the squeezability of a marshmallow. You probably don’t even know you need it, but you’ll know you needed it once you start squeezing it.

THE American classic novelty item (even ahead of the whoopee cushion and rubber vomit, we think) is a set of chattering choppers. Auto-dentures. Invented by Eddy Goldfarb in 1949, a man who made the Toy Industry Hall of Fame ahead of Milton Bradley, these are, not to put too fine a point on it, the sine qua non of gagdom, the ne plus ultra of spring-driven frivolity. Ours are 2-1/2" dia, with a wind-up key.

Imagine the family competitions you could have with this floating ball game. Hours of fun, minutes at a time! The wooden pipe is approx 6” long, and the 1-3/8” Styrofoam balls are yours to levitate through the magic of steady breath and balance. Oh, the wonders! Ages 4+.

We love NASA and so do you, or someone you love does. And with the 50th anniversary of the moon landing this year (July 20), why not show your support by sticking a bunch of classic NASA “meatball” logos on your stuff? You know the one--the blue sphere and white stars with the NASA name in white, a red chevron slashing through it and a white orbiting swirl wrapping it all together. You’ll get (15) logo stickers in 1” dia ; a 3-1/2” logo sticker; a 3-1/2” window cling logo; and a good, old-fashioned 10" x 2-3/4" white bumper sticker with the logo and the following phrase: “IT’S NOT ROCKET SCIENCE! (OH, WAIT, YES IT IS!)”. Hard not to love that aerospace-engineer humor.