To prevent your kid from getting bored with microscope

Except for the kids microscope itself you will need slides and glass sheets, a pipette, pincers and a needle. To add to this you will have to take some substances: distilled water, alcohol, iodine water solution (for coloring). Explain to your kid safety regulations and demand strict following them. Nevertheless a microscope is not just a toy, but a complicated optical instrument. It is not worth using it for cracking nuts, for instance. To add to this one should turn all possible screws without any idea what they are used for. This should be done consciously, with a certain purpose. As soon as possible tell your child what everything in the microscope is intended for and make him learn the real names of the parts in order not to call them 'things' or 'wheels'. It is noticed that even five-year-old kids make themselves familiar with a microscope; they select the magnification level they need and focus the image, examining everything that comes to hand.

At first don't leave your child alone with the microscope. Your little microscopist will quickly learn how to scrutinize objects in reflected lights. But you'd better not entrust him with slides work, but carry it out together. First, making preparation supposes operating with sharp tools (a blade, a needle) and chemical substances. Second, slides are very fragile. Maladroit little fingers can easily crush it and hurt themselves. Teach your child how o use pincers: to separate pieces of examined items and put them on a sample stage. It will develop a little researcher's accuracy and precision of movements.

Adjusting a Children's Microscope

At first it is necessary to adjust lighting. For this aim turn the a mirror under the sample stage in such a way so that the light from the table lamp would reflect from it and go through the aperture diaphragm. Looking through the eyepiece turn the mirror till the whole field of view (i.e. the view you see in the eyepiece) is lit evenly. Now put your preparation onto the sample stage and fix it with special holders. Arrange the objective lens with the smallest magnification. Looking into the eyepiece with the help of adjustment screws raise and descend the microscope drawtube until the preparation image appears in the field of view. During focusing it is possible to move the preparation slowly. In this case it will be easier for you to place it in the right way. Having found the image, rotate the screws more slowly to make the examined object sharper. That's all, start observing!

If an add-in lamp is supplemented, then you won't need a mirror. Apart from this there is no necessity in adjusting it if you are not going to deal with reflected work. In this case just put an object onto a sample stage that must be lit as much as possible and then adjust the focus.