Our grandmother used to tell us that all the time, and we might have learned something while we were out there if she’d given us The Kid’s Guide to Exploring Nature, this 120-page paperback from the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Chock full of information, photos and illustrations for exploring nature in both the city (includes pigeon info!) and the countryside, and in all four seasons. They might stay out of your hair until supper.

Beats us, frankly, but this black plastic cover, 1-3/4” x 1-1/2” x 1/4” (not unlike a tiny toilet seat cover) is hiding a really nice 1” dia x 1/8” (think: quarter size) plated neodymium magnet, with at least a 5-lb pull, inside. The mystery is that the cover won’t open unless you break it. The magnet grabs fine in the case or out of it. Tap it on its side with a hammer to crack open the case and reveal nothing but magnet.

And you need to know how to stay alive on them. We recommend that you choose one of these books to help with that: the U.S. Army 1976 training circular Military Mountaineering, a 139-page paperback guide to survival and combat on glaciers, mountains and alpine paths; or the Department of the Army Map Reading and Land Navigation, a 113-page field manual originally published in 1993.

But at an affordable price. For budding astronomers, the Astronomy Lab for Kids is a 144-page book chock-full of facts, and with (52) astronomy and physics activities. Written by Michelle Nichols, Master Educator at Chicago’s Adler Planetarium. Local customer bonus: the author is an AS&S customer, and presents Science Nights at our Geneva, Ill., store.

But a foot’s a foot, right? These student rulers are wood, 12” long x 1/16” thick with inches, marked in 1/16” increments, on the side with the metal inset and mm’s on the opposite. Drilled for 3-hole binders, but the little buggers will lose them anyway, hence the supply-budget price.

A magnetic opinion for everyone. You get (6) different magnetic stickers, 5" to 6-1/2" across, for your car, locker or fridge, expounding a wide range of often zany expressions. Messages are a bone-shaped "I (heart) my dog," military illustration encircled with "God bless the American Soldier," "Klunker," "Sassy," gas pump noose and a smiley face tongue. Each magnet is pre-priced by a dollar-an-item store at $2, but we're sticking to our own attractive price!

Pat got visibly excited when these came in, and so will you. From Helix®, these are slightly larger versions of the wedge-shaped erasers you stick on top of pencils, but these have...(you better sit down for this)...pencil sharpeners embedded inside of them! It's the pencil twofer, or "double Helix." Make perfect, crisp, mistakes and get rid of them immediately. We'll send a half-dozen in stylish white, blue, black and traditional eraser red.

Clever little plastic boxes 4-1/2" x 2-1/4" x 1" hold note paper - and dispense one sheet at a time as you open and close the cover. The clear red box is labeled "Mom". They work even better with business cards, so they make great little gifts if Mom has her own cards. We'll send you a bag of (3) with each order. 

This 10-piece set of 1" cubes is made to test density in the classroom, and by all means you should do that. Otherwise, how will the children ever understand density? But we like to just play with the cubes, to set them on a desk, or stack them, or line them up, or make shapes out of them, or just pick them up and marvel at their weight differences. You get perfect cubes of aluminum, steel, brass, copper, acrylic, oak, nylon, pine, poplar and PVC.

These Kooties™ are impish little trademarked critters, and in this case they’re on the hardboard covers of these mini-notebooks. Measure 3-1/4” square, top-spiral bound with (71) sheets in each with little Kooties and Kuotes in the Korners. We’ll pick from the (7) assorted Kooties™ on the covers, but they’re all kute. Kinda.

You choose between our 2" square classroom demonstration slides. The diffraction grating slide has 500 lines per mm resolution and a wavelength chart; the linear polarized filter slide has a 1-3/8” x 15/16” window. Nice for classroom and home-schooling use. Made in the USA.

Some kids, you send them to school, they eat the books. Now they’ll still learn something with this 160-page paperback, Amazing (Mostly) Edible Science, by Andrew Schloss. Kids learn the science behind gelatin, crystals, baked goods, fruits, vegetables, eggs and carbonated drinks, and then get to eat their work. Call it kitchen scientific.

A whole bunch of science and scientific learning happens outside of the school lab. These 144-page books by Liz Lee Heinecke have a year’s worth (that’d be 52) of experiments. You pick: Outdoor Science Lab for Kids with (52) experiments in (12) units covering biology, gardening, botany, physics, earth science and chemistry, all with common household items; or Kitchen Science Labs for Kids, with experiments in biology, physics and chemistry using the ever-popular common household materials.

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 Big Book of Gizmos & Gadgets is a 96-page book from Woodworking & Crafts magazine, and has designs and full-size patterns for (15) projects from toys, noisemakers and automata to a rubber-band Gatling gun and gear machine. Most can be made with hand tools and patience, but the authors admit that a table saw, scroll saw, drill press, sander and rotary tool make things a whole lot easier.

School is a tiny bit more tolerable when they can sharpen pencils in these. You get a 2" dia baseball and basketball and a 2-1/2" long football that, as a bonus, sits on a tiny kicking tee.

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'll never lose your chance to highlight something when you hang your highlighter around your neck. These have a 3/16" wedge tip (every true highlighter's choice), and come with a pocket clip and a detachable 18" lanyard. You pick yellow or pink.