Where can I get a microscope for DS?

[Spidermama]

He'll be 6 on his birthday but he's quite advanced so he'd want a proper one.

Any ideas?

Anyone?

Small toy shop like Gamleys ? Argos had one in their sale brochure I think.

are you in London? science museum would probably have one - I think they have an online store

The Natural World have one at £35, or The Entertainer toy shop has a less detailed one at about £15 (from memory).

these guys look good - (have never ordered from them before)

Great thanks WWB. That's exactly the kind of thing I'm looking for. There used to be a Natural World shop here in Brighton which was great for kids sciency stuff ... but it's now something useful like Acessorize.

That one also looks great foxinsox. In fact it looks fab. Far more expensive ... but if my dad wants to contribute ... Hmmmmmmmm.

My ds is likely to have one of the best birthdays of his life present-wise due to his recent diabetes diagnosis.

Spidermama, we have been through this with ds too. He has one very similar to the Natural World one and to be honest the optics are not that great (they may well be fine on that one). He actually got rather discouraged because I have a proper second hand microscope and he could see so much more clearly through that (I use microscopes a lot at work). If your dad does want to join in I would really recommend having a look at Brunel Microscopes - there are some there for about 50 quid, like the RM1 student one. I know it's expensive but the lens will be a good one and he may well get far more years of use out of it. The same company do loads of ready-made slides if you look under "prepared slides", and they are very reliable.

I hope he has a lovely birthday

Thank you very much tamum. I think I'll go for that idea.

So I guess I'll need to buy slides, slide covers ... anything else? Do I need micro slicers for example? Places to store slides? Or can these things wait for later?

You're more than welcome Spidermama I wouldn't get too much in the way of extras to start with to be honest. If you have some slides and covers he can look at hairs and stuff like that. If you buy any of the prepared slides from Brunel they usually come in nifty little plastic slide holder boxes that have space from loads more slides, so that should do you for storage!

I've bought the RM1 with some slides and covers and it's due to arrive by Friday. Hooray!

Good idea to look at hairs. I remember at school looking at onion scrapings too, and scrapings from inside my cheek.

Oh No! I've messed up. The microscope has arrived but there's no lamp attached. I thought they all had built in lamps.

Ah well, back to the company tomorrow.

tamum thanks again. DS loves his microscope. We've been watching headlice squirm under it from his brothers' head. It's amazing. We could see some sort of heartbeat and the blood coursing through its viens. DS was absolutely blown away. We all were.

What else could we put under? Would blood be interesting do you reckon?

DS has tried snot (of course) but we could find nothing much of interest. We also tried pond water but I think it's too cold for anything ti survive in there atm.