The Ultimate Guide to Your Microscope, by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone is a 144-page softcover book covering lenses, lighting, slide-making and what to look for in various samples. Heavily illustrated with color photography. Don't take the scope out of its box without this book.

When we were your age, our protractors were all just plain clear plastic. You kids today can get them in translucent blue, red, orange, purple or green, but we're going to pick because we didn't get to then. These pretty ones are 6" wide and read from 0-6" x 1/16" on the bottom and from 0-180 degrees x 0.5-degrees bidirectionally along the arc. Include holes for a 3-ring binder.

You can start with our single aluminum tuning fork, 2-tined and 7-1/2" long. It vibrates at 256 hz, and is labeled "C". Or you can order the set that has (8) forks and a mallet with a rubber-tipped plastic head. The forks are labeled low-C to high-C and come in a fitted, latched wooden box. Unfortunately, C.J., who has perfect pitch, tells us that his pitch is more perfect than most of the tuning forks. He also says you can file the tips, tuning them to an electronic keyboard until they're perfect - and we think there's a certain cachet to telling people you tuned the forks yourself. But they are perfect, if you're using them for things like teaching principles of sound or driving the chihuahua crazy.

Get your budding inventor a copy of Extreme Garage Science for Kids. Published by the Action Lab Channel on YouTube, the book outlines (30) fun and educational experiments using common household items and chemicals, plus a laser pointer, dry ice, glow in the dark stars, a basketball and common household gravity. Profusely illustrated, with easy-to-follow instructions.

Sure, measure twice, cut once, but what the master craftspeople don’t tell you is to record those measurements. This handy set is ideal for the woodworking lumbersmith in your life. The Woodworker’s Shop Journal is filled with (100) pages of ¼” grids to record and plan your plank projects. There’s also more than (20) pages of reference material like charts, lumber specs, tool guides and checklists for your woodworking edification. With a journal this thorough, you’ll need a writing implement that can keep up, so we’re including our very own amazing 9-way ruler-driver-stylus pen tool. It includes (4) different rulers, a bubble level, Phillips and slotted drivers and more. Who woodn’t like a set like this?

The weirdness just gets weirder in the "Weird Civil War" entry in this book series, tracing ghosts, creepy legends and other spooky tales of the Civil War (or War Between the States, or War of Northern Aggression, depending upon how you hold). Stories weave through the Carolinas, Florida & Georgia, Kentucky & Tennessee, Louisiana, Maryland, Pennsylvania, Virginia and DC, plus the Midwest, Great Plains and Southwest. Lushly illustrated in a 207-page hardcover, but don't count on it for your SAT prep.

The kind you hang in the front of the laboratory or on the classroom wall, which is what we suggest you do with this one. Measures 38" x 50" and is laminated to protect it from flying students. Has an aluminum frame and hang tabs on the back side. Brand new! Great quality. Please note: This item is not available for expedited shipping.

Please Note: Your entire order will ship standard ground when purchasing this item and the actual shipping costs will be charged. Thanks!

These (2) reproduction maps are printed on "antiqued vellum" and are both approx 15-3/4" x 14". They show, respectively, the locations of Civil War battles and the principal events in the Revolutionary War, along with chronologies at the bottom. Lots of info packed into a small space, but the kids will read them easily. You might want some glasses. Includes both maps.

An easy way to light up the kids' eyes! Teach them to wire a simple circuit with our basic components.

• The knife switches are mounted on a plastic bases.
• The miniature plastic socket holds a standard flashlight bulb with a 14 mm dia screw base.
• We pack 6 volt and 3 volt round bulbs, or 1.5 volt bell-shaped bulbs, (5) to a package.(Bulbs are rated slightly higher to prevent them from burning out.)
• Hook up the black plastic and metal 2" x 4-1/4" telegraph key with brass contacts and (2) terminal posts with nuts.
• Our blue-plastic holder for (1) "D" battery has a small tab at each end to hook a lead to, and a 1/8" square mounting hole at each corner.
• You add the mounting surface and the know-how.
• Actual bulb voltage listed in parenthesis.

It’s a scientific breakthrough! Oh, wait, no, it’s a rare-earth magnet encased in white plastic. Great for holding notes on your white refrigerator without clashing. Measures 1-1/4” x 3/8” x 5/16” and also has a piece of self-adhesive foam on the back to stick where magnets won’t grab.

Rectangular spiral notebooks are so liberal arts. If you’re taking qualitative analysis notes, you want your notebook to be shaped like an Erlenmeyer flask. This one has (48) sheets, 8-1/2” long x 1-3/8” at the top (saves on spirals) and 5-3/4” at the bottom. We’re pretty sure Emil Erlenmeyer would have loved these when he was working in Heidelberg with Bob Bunsen, of burner fame. (Really. You could look it up.)

A tad smaller in diameter than a ping pong ball, this colorful steel geographic globe is 1-3/8" dia, but pull out the little base it stands on and you’ll find a small pencil sharpener hidden inside. Also suitable for hiding secret messages, which is always handy.

Who among us doesn’t? Even a just man falls seven times. Just get this little eraser wheel, 1-7/8" dia x 3/8" thick in latex-fee rubber. The plastic housing rotates to keep it closed and schmutz-free in your drawer, just waiting for you to err.

You win some, you lose some? No need to keep switching pens when you have this two-headed ball point pen with a black cartridge at one end and a red one at the other. Perfect for those hand-held profit and loss statements.

Nothing says fun science like stuff blowing up or falling down. Ask any middle-schooler. Get them started with one of these excellent books: Massively Epic Engineering Disasters, a 241-page hard-cover book devoted to (20) mishaps through the ages, plus (33) experiments based on the principles that caused them; or Potentially Catastrophic Science, 306 pages with (50) experiments ranging from pre-history to the present. Taken together, they cover everything from collapsing cathedrals and sunken boats to sonic booms and batteries.

Genuine, original, accept-no-substitutes brand-name Sharpie®s for when you really mean it and want a permanent marker. You pick the fine point red or blue, or the blue with a 3/16” bullet tip.

A must-have for micro-warriors; Mini Weapons of Mass Destruction by John Austin (author of the best-selling Cubicle Warfare) is 241 pages of detailed instructions for building (42) implements of spitball warfare from ordinary household objects and office supplies. With the caveat that this is written for responsible individuals who take reasonable safety precautions (don't do anything your mother would scream at) we have to say that we love the binder-clip crossbow and the tongue-depressor catapult. Volume 2, which is 251 pages, has a secret-agent flair with new gadgets like the push-pin dart, toothpaste periscope and cereal briefcase. Volume 3, 267 pages, continues with a Medieval flavor and over a dozen catapults and ballistae, plus a buncha bows and crossbows. Oh, just buy the whole 3-volume Library of Destruction and get it over with.

You can write on duct tape, but try to change your mind later and see what happens. We recommend these 12-foot x 1-7/8” wide rolls of dark gray chalkboard tape, which you can write on with, you guessed it, chalk; or the 12-foot rolls of the more modern dry-erase tape, which we’ll pick for you in either white or day-glo orange.