I was surprised to hear this past week how many of my friends' kids are already headed back to school. From the sounds of things, school years will be starting across the country over the next few weeks and AOL Search's latest stats show that school supplies are on the minds of searchers. Tallying up the queries performed at AOL Search, the portal found that tech gadgets and preppy clothes remain hot items for students.

Abercrombie & Fitch leads the way as the most searched for brand, followed by Amercian Eagle, Gap and Aéropostale. The retro style shirts offered by these stores are a big hit and searches for t-shirt related phrases are off the charts. Girls are fueling a surge in searches for skirts with the ever-popular mini-skirt topping the charts. Peasant skirts, bohemian skirts, broomstick skirts and prairie skirts are also topping the list. (I take it as a good sign that today's students can spell words like peasant and bohemian...even if I have no idea what those types of skirts look like...)

I'd give you two guesses what the most popular gadget search is, but if you get it wrong, you have to buy me an iPod mini. They seem to be everywhere, so I'm not quite sure why everyone is still searching for them. The PSP, cell phones and the upcoming Xbox 360 are also popular items, though I've yet to figure out what they have to do with school.

Lunch boxes are seeing a search surge, which makes my day. I'm a huge fan of funky lunch boxes, having carried a Muppets lunch box all the way through high school.

Does anyone else remember the days when you had to actually go to a store to get all those crisp sheets of writing paper?