Very cheap microscope at Borders.

[eepster]

I was at Borders the other day, but didn't have a lot of time.

I was mostly stocking up on from the $1 clearance books. I saw a microscope kit in the window though, and looked around for it briefly. It was really inexpensive, it had a bargain book sticker on it. I thought I saw $9.99, but I'm not 100% sure. I planned to ask about it, but I spent too much time finding $1 books and didn't have time.

Has anyone else seen it? Maybe gotten a chance to look at it more closely? Anyone actually bought it?

DS has been asking about microscopic stuff lately, particularily germs. There is a good chance he wouldn't be very careful with a microscope and attempting to take it a part is a strong possibility, so I don't want to give him access to a fancy one.

[daytripper75]

*tool snob alert*
My issue with a $10 microscope is that the lenses probably aren't nearly decent enough to get a good look at anything. I would be far more likely to spend as much as I possibly could on one and then watch it like a hawk while my lo's used it. This is what we've done with telescopes (and then with musical instruments) and we haven't been sorry. (Yet? )
While it seems like a good idea in theory, having a microscope that distorts isn't useful in reality.
/snobbery (Sorry!)

Maybe it is a wonderful fluke and the microscope is actually pretty good.

[joensally]

DS had a great time at around 4 unwittingly destroying his first, $10 microscope. It took him awhile to totally mess it up and he enjoyed the process - it was developmentally appropriate for him. He's now a very responsible owner of a higher quality microscope.

[HeatherB]

Moving to Learning at Home.

[meetoo]

I found cheap microscopes don't work so well, so I am waiting until my kids are older then I'm going to look for a good one. One thing we did get that is neat is called Eyeclops. It shows up on your TV. It was not crystal clear but for their ages, and the price, it is pretty neat. It allowed them to look at things like hair, sugar, salt, etc.

[elizawill]

we have a cheap national geographic microscope. it came in a large grey case with lots of extra stuff. it works just okay, but the kids have a lot of fun with it. we'll definitely graduate from it, but it was worth the $10 for sure...especially since my mom paid for it, lol.

[dotnetdiva]

We got a microscope for Christmas. Totally wanted to wait a few more years, but thought oh well, let's just do it! So we read reviews and researched and read more reviews and more research. We decided to go with this one for $89.99 - My First Lab Microscope. It's awesome! I don't feel we paid big bucks for it, and the 41 5-star reviews made me feel we got some great optics.

It will sit up on my desk and will only come down with adult supervision.

Sometimes I do buy cheap versions of things, we have plenty of cheap binoculars that look worse using them than with your own eye, hehe. But for microscopes and telescopes we want something that works well and gets us excited to look through them.

[eepster]

Since this thread has popped back up, I guess I'll let everyone know how it went.

It was actually just $7.99, so I got it for christmas.

DS was extremely excited by it. It needed minor assembly, which DS loved. The prepared slide it came with had bits of fluff labeled "wool," "silk," and "cotton." There were also a couple of blank slides. It of course came with a rather useless book.

It is as cheaply made as one might expect. The thing was so loose it wouldn't stay in focus, but I fixed that by tightening it up with a piece of tissue. The lenses are very very low quality, and you can tell when you look at things.

It really is working well enough for DS though. He refuses to let the eyepiece touch his face and looks through the lens from a few inches away, so better quality optics aren't really necessary. He has dropped it off the table a few times, and it is light enough to do no damage and non of its parts are particularily fragile. He has spent as much time (if not more) examining how it is put together as he has spent looking at stuff with it. He enjoys carrying it around and saying "this is my microscope."

The best thing about it though is I can honestly tell DS, that it isn't powerful enough to see potty germs.