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.

Like Wonder Woman, this nickel-plated rare earth magnet is pretty and extremely powerful. It’s a 3/4” square x 1/4” thick neodymium magnet with an 8-lb pull and a better-than-usual plating job.

You like to scratch off stuff and see what you haven’t won? Get ready for some serious scratching with this full-color political world map, approx 36" x 20", where all the countries and islands start out gray until you scratch-off to reveal their colors. No Antarctica, sadly, but it’s mostly white anyway. Except for the penguins.

Of course you can buy science by the jar. Mason Jar Science is a 135-page hardcover with “40 Slimy, Squishy, Super-Cool Experiments” detailed inside. Includes fun with crystals, bubbles, slimes, liquids and gases, all made possible using common household items (assuming your household is common) plus, of course, the eponymous Mason jar.

The Book of Terrifyingly Awesome Technology is crying out for a spot on your kid’s bookshelf. It’s a hardbound book with (227) pages of info-taining stories and (27) experiments that blur the lines between science fiction and modern technology, but in a good way. Experiments will require the always-popular “common household items” and don't blame us if you wake up to a space elevator in your backyard.

Looking for a very, very, very long refrigerator magnet? At 15 ft, this 3/8" wide x 1/16" thick magnetic strip should just about go up one side, across the top, and down the other side. It's flexible, but can be broken if bent back against itself -- which means that small children can make craft magnets without having to cut the strip or themselves! We love it when a plan comes together!

Wonderful little book jammed with elaborate colored drawings that tells the beginner a little about everything to do with a microscope. And all in a mere 48 pages! From data on the history and types of microscopes, to introductions and samples and how to prepare them, (from tissues and insects to crystals) to ideas for experiments and lists of simple equipment needs, and how to build them at home, this book is a veritable cornucopia of information. If you are thinking of getting a microscope, we strongly recommend "The World of the Microscope" as a great stimulus for the novice user. It won't answer heavy duty scientific questions. But it will keep the beginner busy, challenged and entertained for days and weeks! By Chris Oxlade and Corrine Stockley. Paperback, 7-3/4" x 9-3/4". One of the Usborne science and experiments series of books.

Kitchen conversions are easy with this 3" x 4" deluxe American Science & Surplus fridge magnet that lists everything from a tablespoon to a cup with the equivalent in ounces, tablespoons, teaspoons, milliliters and fractions of a cup. If your kids already have fridges of their own, you can share the extra magnets with them - unless they were the only kids on the block who knew how many ounces were in a cup. Kitchen Fun.

…when you crank up this 13-1/4" tall, hand-cranked Wimshurst generator. They were the toast of the 19th Century, and remained the hottest thing around, electrostatically speaking, until Bobby Van de Graaf came along. This one works like a top, zapping sparks to a fare-thee-well with very little cranking. It's mighty pretty too, in acrylic, white and silver, and will dress up a dull physics or electronics lab.

Our tactical twofer is a 6” long x 1/2” dia. aluminum body ball-point pen with black ink, with an automobile window breaker at the other end. In gun-metal gray, as befits things tactical, with a pocket clip on the flat-top cap. Escape from your car, then write us a thank you note.

The Woodworker’s Shop Journal is a hardcover book with (100+) pages of 1/4" grids for project planning and sketches, plus (20+) pages of quick references, charts, lumber specs, tool guides, checklists and tips. Also a good place to keep passwords and other personal information because burglars are famous for not caring about carpentry skills.

Call them the Founding Replicas and display them in the classroom, whether at home or in school. The U.S. Constitution is 18-1/2" x 12-1/2" and the Bill of Rights is 15-5/8" x 13-5/8", both on realistic "antiqued vellum." These are nice replicas, but much reduced in size, the Constitution in particular will require magnification for reading. Our each includes both documents.

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.

If you make cool stuff, people will pass it on to your children’s children’s children and you won’t spend eternity as just an old picture on a lost thumb drive. We suggest: Making Inventive Wooden Toys, a 184-page paperback with plans for (33) toys, many of them ballistic, out of scrap wood and easily found hardware; or Making Poor Man’s Guitars, a 176-page paperback with detailed instructions for building string instruments out of cigar boxes, frying pans, tin cans, mailboxes and washtubs, with a beer-can microphone thrown in.

Just a big, smooth ceramic block magnet, 2" square x 1" thick with an affirmative 15-pound pull. You stick a note on the fridge with this puppy and you can be pretty sure it's going to be there when you get home. Even if you leave the windows open. Nice for grabbing loose screws on the workbench, too, but keep it away from your hard drive and the credit cards in your wallet.

Our all-time favorite misprint-special featured thousands of pencils marked “Pensil.” We don’t expect to top that, but we do have beaucoup black-ink gel pens with rubber-coated barrels and caps with mangled, mistaken, or over-printed promo messages. They’re yours for a song--or a half-buck each, whether you can sing or not.

Same here. Try the Ferrofluid Magnetic Display, a little sealed bottle with virtually fluid nano-particles of ferrous metal suspended in liquid. You’ll get (4) powerful 1/2” dia x 3/16” neodymium disc magnets, (2) of them attached to chess-pawnish holders. Move the magnets in assorted combinations around the bottle for fascinating effects. Sort of the marriage of science with desk toys, but students can’t spill these particles all over the place.

This magnetic sheet isn't large enough to make a magnetic bed, but it's just right for making a bulletin board, hanging on to a rounded surface, or clinging to a car door with its glossy magnetic side. It's a flexible, very dark brown rubber-like material, easily cut with scissors. A 2-ft piece is cut for you from the 2-ft wide x .011" thick material.