If your kids are anything like mine then they’ll love this My Living World Pocket Microscope. Although small enough to fit in your pocket, the powerful 30x lens allows you to look in detail at a whole range of objects providing hours of fun for inquisitive kids.
advert- gifted product for review
If you like this then you may enjoy our review of the following STEM products; Tiger Anatomy Model, Fossil Dig Kit, and Science Mad Crystal Growing Lab
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Page Contents
What’s In The My Living World Pocket Microscope Box
- Pocket microscope with light (requires 2x AA batteries not included)
- 1 x textile specimen slide
- 1x insect section specimen slide
- 3 x blank slides
- 4 x specimen jars
- 12 x labels and clear covers
- Plastic tweezers
- Guide
- Ages 6+ years
You can purchase the pocket microscope at Amazon
How To Use The MY LIVING WORLD POCKET MICROSCOPE
The pocket microscope comes with a light that automatically works (after you have inserted 2xAA batteries) when you gently pull apart/open out the microscope at the top which is where the eyepiece is. The light shines down onto the object your examining allowing you to see lots of detail.
It’s worth noting that the light can sometimes bleach out the detail so it’s worth experimenting with what you see with both the light on or off especially if it’s a bright day!
To focus the microscope you slowly turn a little wheel about 2/3 way up that you can reach from the front and back.
My girls found it easy to use (aged 9/10) and as you’ll see below we had loads of fun examining different objects. Because of its design it’s very versatile allowing kids to look at thin sections on slides as well as the detail on larger 3d objects including live insects!
Younger children may have a little difficulty to start with if they cannot wink as covering your eye with one hand and twiddling the focus with the other requires some serious hand skills.
But it won’t take long to get the hang of (all microscopes take time to master) and with a little patience, they’ll gain access to a whole new micro world!
Here’s what we investigated With The MY LIVING WORLD POCKET MICROSCOPE
Skin
my girls looked at the difference between my skin and theirs (mine was a bit more scaly!) and they were fascinated at seeing their hair magnified so we also looked at the hair on the head which looked like long tubes. Notice that we didn’t use the built-in light to look at this. Daylight gave a better result.
Flower Heads – We examined a few different flower heads, checking out the petal detail, what the stamens looked like and best of all the teeny drops of pollen that looked like orange cake sprinkles under the microscope!
Bugs
I love the mini-tutorial in the guide on how to view a live bug without harming it. The little bottles are perfect for capturing mini-beasts without harming (don’t put the lid on as they won’t breath!). The woodlouse was really interesting and had a surprising spotty pattern on its segments.
Rocks
We looked at the crystalline surface of some igneous rocks and I even dug out my igneous rock thin sections slides from my student days (I did a Geology degree many moons ago) for the girls to look at. They were able to compare some of the structures of the fine-grained basalt thin sections with the surface structures on the coarser-grained rocks!
Other
We also looked at rusty nails, wood, fabric, snail shells, and dried spit!
Oh yes, this little microscope is a lot of fun and has now been added to the bag of VERY IMPORTANT SPY STUFF.
We were sent this pocket microscope by Interplay for the purpose of this review. All thoughts, content, and imagery are my own.