Practical Life Exercises and a Call for Advice

Most practical life exercises use what you'd expect - items around the home for learning practical life skills. Oh, it might be nice to have some smaller sized items around (like a small broom) for little ones to use, but for the most part you just teach them with what they have. We did make some dressing frames last year and I plan to use our bottles and tops more, too. I just saved some plastic bottles with different shaped lids and put them together in this box. Fancy, huh?

I'm debating about actually buying a few things for other practical exercises, though. I plan to work with First Son and First Daughter on lacing shoes. (First Son may know how to do that already; I haven't asked him to see.) You can buy or make a dressing frame or little toy for that, but it seems to make sense to me that using a regular shoe will work.

I would also like to teach First Son to tie his own shoes, however. I've looked around a bit because I'd really like some laces that are different colored, to make it easier to see where the different ends are going as he's tying (or as we're showing him how to tie). I can't seem to find any. There are a few books or toys with laces like that, but I really just want the laces. Anyone know where I could find them?

I'm also thinking about buying some eye droppers. It was clear to me during a summer reading program experiment that both First Son and First Daughter could use some practice. There is a science supply store in town that probably carries them, but it's not really close to other places we regularly go. I found some online (here, for example) and they're very inexpensive, but with shipping it seems a little ridiculous. My local hobby store carries them (at least they are in the online store), but they're twice as much. Anyone know of an online store that might have them that offers free shipping? Or with enough cool stuff at good prices I could make a decent sized order?