We recently discovered a great line of kids' camping gear from HABA that is basically a collection of ourdoor-oriented toys. It includes a lot of the little gadgets you've probably already seen for kids, but done with a consistent theme if you like that sort of thing - whistles, emergency capsules for rolled-up personal info, and so on - but there are a few items in particular that we're really excited about.

One is this monocle, which the company sent us to try out.


It offers 10x25 magnification, adjusts smoothly, has a nice weight in the hand, and comes with a very nice neoprene pouch with a compass and carabiner. It costs $31, well above the cheapest monocles you can find online (they're popular with hunters for their ease of use and quick deployment) but without the scathing criticisms, too. Looks like a get-what-you-pay-for kind of thing. If you have found a cheap monocle brand you like, an alternate brand would make a good gift for a child in your life, probably age 6 or so - our four-year-old has a hard time not only adjusting it but closing the correct eye. But this makes a nice gift, given the case, the quality, and a couple of other elements of the Terra Kids line you might combine it with for a larger gift:

LED Camping Light: This five-LED lantern is powered by a hand-crank and sized for kids. You can buy hand-crank flashlights for kids, or cheap hand-crank lanterns on the cheap, but this one looks nice. If anyone has tried it, we'd love to hear how bright it is. This should be good for kids as young as 3 - Z was quite good with the hand crank for her Dynafly.

Outdoor Microscope: Handheld 40x microscope with a neoprene case containing tweezers, microscope slides, and specimen capsules. I could see our daughter playing with this in the woods behind our house in a couple of years. The microscope includes an LED light to illuminate samples. So cool, but I can't find it for sale anywhere.

Angler's Set: As a vegetarian, I am highly unqualified to evaluate HABA's $70 Angler's Set, but it looks cute and has a lot of stuff in it. If you're a fishing family or would like to be, this set looks like it's designed to be functional, not a toy, and HABA doesn't mess around making stuff that doesn't work.