We didn't want to leave you in the lurch, having to hunt around at the last minute for the bendable straws, soap-free steel wool, medium-sized steel washers, clay, and so forth that are required to do some of the science experiments.

We wanted to eliminate the futile hunts through the Yellow Pages — or the bazaar — looking for the — which? — shop that might sell you a ping pong ball or cork. And we wanted to do away with those frustrating excursions down to the hardware store for things like the 1" copper brad the instructions call for — but that the hardware store sells ( if it sells them!) only in boxes of a hundred.

That's why we created our science supply kits. They include all the small and unusual items you'll need: things you wouldn't normally have around the house and other items you might own but wouldn't be able, easily, to put your hands on.

After gathering all your supplies together, we place them in a handy, resealable, zip-lock bag so you'll always know where everything is when you need it.

As mentioned above, we had our purchasing agent, do most of the experiments. Sometimes she discovered that the book's descriptions of the supplies you need are misleading or incorrect. As a result, she made the necessary changes.

Besides incorrect items, she also paid attention to questions clients had raised about what, specifically, various kits include. For example, in the Intro to Biology supplies kit (#DSK), we had long been including radish, lentil, popcorn, and wheat seeds. The problem was that not everyone who received those kits knew what was what. So she rewrote the supply kit parts lists and descriptions so there could be no mistakes. She even added notes on the care and handling of certain components....

EXPERIMENTS

Beginning at the kindergarten level and continuing right through the elementary years, we have chosen the wonderful Usborne books to do the bulk of the work of conveying scientific knowledge.

Reading an Usborne book is a unique experience. The best way we can describe it is to suggest that you imagine what it would be like to have a textbook that consisted almost solely of the kinds of illustrations you find in National Geographic, accompanied by the same kind of informative text you find alongside those illustrations — yet written in a manner that children can easily understand.

Usborne books' illustrations are beautifully detailed hand-drawn pictures and look as if they could have been adapted straight from National Geographic photographs.

Every page is filled with these high-quality, full-color pictures — either full, two-page spreads or many smaller illustrations on each page. All text is clearly tied to the illustrations.

These are books that your kindergartner will want to take with him to bed . . . and that you'll want to read for your own educational enjoyment. They aren't "baby" books. They're filled with solid information. And, in many of them, experiments that you and your children can do together.

Besides the Usborne books, you'll find we carry dozens of other science texts, all of which are designed for easy understanding and pleasurable education. These are books that — as almost everything else in Sonlight^® — you and your children will turn to not because you have to but because you want to. Because you want to pursue the adventure.