All About Microscopes for Kids -- with Free Printables

Using microscopes with kids — whether at home or in the classroom — is a lot of fun. It’s always cool to see how amazed they are by the things you can see under a microscope that you wouldn’t know were there otherwise. Just a drop of water from a nearby pond or creek can be full of interesting things to observe.

Entry-level microscopes for classroom or home use tend to be both durable and easy to use so they’re great for kids. You can choose plastic or metal models with various ranges of magnification. They often come with sample slides and other fun stuff for kids to explore.

This National Geographic branded microscope, for example, has large knobs that are easy for kids to manipulate. It magnifies up to 400 times and includes specimens from plants, rocks and minerals, as well as empty slides and the tools kids need to collect their own specimens. There’s also a lab guide full of activities for them to try.

If you like a more traditional microscope like the ones you might have used growing up, try this one from AmScope. It has up to 1200 times magnification and weighs less than three pounds. It includes everything you need to hatch and observe brine shrimp, as well as prepared and blank slides and supplies to collect specimens. It also includes a hard sided carrying case.

Whatever microscope you choose, be sure to grab our free printable microscope activity set. This set includes parts of the microscope (labeled and with labels for the student to add), a word search, writing page and several sheets for drawing observations from under the microscope. You can grab the printables from our online shop.

Several countries have a day set aside to honor and recognize their inventors, but Nov. 9 is a special one that’s known as Tag der Erfinder in German. It’s celebrated in Germany, Austria and Switzerland and it falls on Nov. 9 because that’s the birthday of Hedy Lamarr.

Hedy Lamarr is widely known as an actress but there’s a lot more to her story. You can get a little of it geared to little kids in the Little People, Big Dreams book Hedy Lamarr (32 pages, hardcover, published 2023 by Frances Lincoln Childrens Books, suggested retail price $15.99).

The book explores her birth in Austria and how she spent time when she was young coming up with inventions. She became an actress, married an arms dealer, made her escape to America and became an actress again.

But she also helped develop a frequency-hopping signal device for airplanes that was used by the Americans and their allies during World War II. That technology became the basis for wireless technology such as wifi and GPS.

While Inventor’s Day is a great time to learn about Hedy Lamarr, you can take this opportunity to check out books and do little studies on lots of different inventors. If there’s an inventor or an invention your child is particularly interested in, that’s a great place to start. It’s fun to think about all the things we use every day that didn’t always exist; someone had to invent them!

For a start here at Craft Gossip you can learn more about Garrett Morgan, who invented traffic lights; Maria Oroso, who developed a clay oven that could cook food without electricity; and more female inventors and scientists.

And for more general inventors’ fun, check out this inventors word search from Fun Findery (and another from Let’s Do Puzzles) or take a quiz on inventors and their inventions from Flanders Family Home Life.

All About Microscopes for Kids — with Free Printables

Celebrate Inventor’s Day by Learning about Inventors

Have you read?

Leave a Reply