Submitted and Written by Brian D

It was the original playlist. There was no real way to get individual songs off of all your different cassettes, and there was no such thing as a multi-disc CD-changer, much less a “Shuffle” option on an iPod! All you could do to get your favorite songs from differentartists on to a single collection was man your stereo, blank tape inserted and at the ready, listening to your favorite radio station, and prepared to press that “RECORD” button the instant they started playing a song you liked and wanted to capture!

It wasn’t easy! You had split seconds to determine if those first few beats were indeed the song you wanted. You had to avoid DJ’s babbling through the beginning of songs and try and hit “RECORD” as soon as he finally shut up. Miss the timing? Rewind –> Stop –> Play over and over and over again to get the tape back to the proper spot and ready to try recording again. And then, what if that damn DJ started babbling before the song was finished?! Or the radio station inserted their call letters or a jingle in there somewhere?! There was no telling when the next time the station would play that song again, or if you’d even be around to hear it!

I think back and remember making mixtapes with Third Eye Blind and Sugar Ray on them. Hmm…

Submitted by Colleen S

Magic Slate was a peel-back dry erase board, kind of like a poor man’s, goody-bag friendly Etch-A-Sketch. I was never able to draw anything especially impressive on a Magic Slate pad, but then again, I was thankful that it was so easy to erase — I’m sure my third grade teacher would’ve been upset about the portraits I was doodling of her.

Submitted and written by Trinity Fish

Sand Art Windows are filled with a liquid and multi-colored sand in between two sheets of glass. The frame is on a spinner. When you flip it over (so the sand is at the top) it slowly trickles down as flow channels are created. As the sand falls it forms different patterns. This contraption was especially popular during the late seventies through the eighties (right about the time home video game consoles started becoming popular). They can still be bought, although they are extremely difficult to find anywhere except the internet.

Submitted by Jordan C

Perler Beads are great for introducing young ones to craft projects. Today’s parent might be hesitant because fusing them requires an iron, but our parents were always cool with it as long as there was a strict understanding that playing with hot irons was a bad idea and that stage should be handled by an older sibling or adult (even though this rule probably got us in trouble more than we’d like to admit).

Submitted by Jennifer B

Sesame Workshops’ How Crayons Are Made was an Epic Win for all of the curious kids that always wanted to know how something worked or how it was made or why it did what it did. We wonder how many kids tried to melt the crayons and make their own colors after watching this though.