BEST SELLERS

Just like our famous cow popper, but this guy is a 5-1/4” tall rubber axolotl with a mouth big enough to take a 1-1/8” dia foam ball and spit it 20 feet when you squeeze it, as you will want to do. And if you’re axolotl-ignorant, they’re neotenic salamanders, the world’s cutest amphibians, and they also answer to “Mexican walking fish.” Ours come with (6) foam balls for your axolotl-squeezing convenience. For ages 4+.

Geology for those with short attention spans? The original Magic Rocks®, of course! Mix the solution in a jar of water, drop in the pebbles, and watch them grow into a forest of multi-color stalagmites. Growth starts in 10 minutes, is impressive in 30 minutes, and complete (up to 4" tall) in 2 hours. Extra credit if you can make it grow stalactites by gluing the pebbles to the bottom of a jar, then pouring the solution in and turning it upside down. Who knows? Maybe it will work. Comes with a set of marine decals to decorate the jar. Definitely not for use with living fish. For ages 10 and up.

"WE DARE YOU!" by Vicki Cobb is a 322-page book for children, filled with over (300) scientific challenges and experiments that can be done with ordinary household stuff. A savvy adult could introduce kids to science by betting them their allowance money on the afore-mentioned challenges, including making square eggs without using a square chicken, writing with potatoes, blowing frozen soap bubbles, and a whole bunch more.

If ever the day comes when a kid doesn’t need more stickers, we don’t want any part of it. We have (4) new sets, mostly all critters. You pick—or better yet, let the kid pick: the (21)-piece dog set including Chihuahua, Golden Retriever, and Sheltie amongst many others; the (37)-piece ant set including the classic black critters in various poses or the collection of (16) baby print stickers: (4) sets of handprints and (4) sets of footprints, roughly 1” to 2” in fingerprint-dust color.

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.

Never miss the ball with your paddle again. These jumbo ping pong balls are just the thing for the table tennis challenged. At 2-1/2" they are a little tough to bounce into those red cups you all love to play games with but we know you will try. Our each is a box of (3).

Jarvis Says: Not yet available in our retail stores. 

Very popular with elementary school teachers, these hardcover blank books let students create their own storybooks. (Middle-schoolers interviewing and making books for primary grade kids is a popular and civilizing project.) Also great for sketching, journaling or scrapbooking. Pure white blank covers with (14) sheets (28 pages) of 80-lb blank paper inside with a sewn-in binding. You pick the 6” x 8” books or the 8-1/2” x 11” versions.

If Werner Von Braun had used these, Londonwould have just gotten wet. Have somegood clean fun with this Hydrotech"Aquazone" rocket set. You get (2) 5-3/4" tall water rockets and (1) 8-3/4" rocket, plus (2) filling funnelsand a piston pump for power. Includes a 6-page pamphlet on rocketry. For ages 8+, for good clean outside fun.

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.

The mouse is back! After an extended absence (due more to supply problems than to any rodent-eradication program) the gray rubber mouse is once again available. A hair under 3" long with a 4" long tail, he's diminutive and detailed -- and ready to move into Sis's underwear drawer!

Newtonian demonstrator for science teachers. Mindless play for the rest of us. These are shiny, nicely balanced, high-performance examples of the classic Newton's Cradle - a ball on one end of a row of (5) suspended, barely touching balls swings into the others, and the ball at the opposite end reacts to the collision. The 11/16" dia balls in the all-metal frame 6-1/2" high x 4" x 4-1/4" will collide about 30 times. Awesome. Even more awesome that we paid someone to count the bounces just for you! (Unpacking note: Less awesome if you just yank it out by the suspension lines and pull a couple of balls loose. Be gentle.)

Admit it, we all still love to spin. These fidget spinners have a radius of about 1-1/2”, and a great feel. Better than that, they’re branded, which means you’ll get one with an official Looney Tunes or Justice League design on it. Yeah, we’re talking Bugs Bunny, Tweety Bird, Tasmanian Devil and Batman—every last one of them a great spinner. We'll reach into our grab bag and pull one out. ! WARNING: CHOKING HAZARD–Small Parts. Not for children under 3 yrs.

Why does it do that? Develop an elemental understanding of magnetism, electromagnetism, electrochemistry, radio, thermodynamics, light and optics. Simon Quellen Field's 228-page paperback, Gonzo Gizmos, Projects & Devices to Channel your Inner Geek explains processes, equipment and scientific terms -- and then, for starters, tells you things like how to make a rotary steam engine in 15 minutes from a soda can, a candle and a few scraps of rubber tubing. It's the favorite of our resident geeks -- but not for kids unless they're working with an adult. That would be a mature adult. An insured, mature adult.

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.

Even if you're not a female flamingo yourself, you can still hatch an adorable hot pink flamingo. You’ll get an equally hot pink, 4-1/4" egg, which you immerse in water and wait a couple-three days while it hatches and grows to 8”+ tall. But the fun doesn’t stop there. Take Pinky out of the water and it will shrink back to egg-size and regrow endless times. (The egg, however, will be history.)

Make a whole bunch of fun and instructive Lego® machines/chain reaction models like marble runs and mousetraps involving ramps, buckets, funnels balances and much more. Comes with (33) Lego® elements, (6) Lego® balls, a dozen paper props, and a 78-page instruction booklet for (10) machines. You add a few common household items. Includes suggestions for more complicated devices if you have your own Lego® pieces, and if you don't, what are you waiting for? Ages 8+.

This 5” tall x 3-1/8” dia white plastic Jumbo Surprise Egg has a bag of lovely blue slime inside plus a small, squishy animal. We've found a dopey dinosaur and other critters, but it's a surprise, remember? Has a little plastic hook on top in case you want to hang your slime somewhere.

Bigger than a baseball across the top, this is one ginormous jewel. You pick a clear or translucent-sky-blue, 24% lead crystal, cut-glass gem. It’s 3-1/8” dia at the top, tapering to point 2-1/8” deep. Could be mounted in a stunning, but really, really, really big engagement ring.