The Mad Scientist: Introduction to the Microscope

It has truly been a mad day around my house (don’t ask), which fits into today’s summer school lesson… “The Mad Scientist”! Today, for our “mad science” lesson, we focused on learning the basics of the microscope.

Our homeschool PSP has been blessed with three awesome microscopes. Unfortunately, they usually sit in a cupboard unused. I asked our homeschool principal if our family could possibly borrow one for the summer, if we took good care of it. His answer was “yes”!!

Along with the microscope, came four boxes of slides. Three boxes had already prepped samples for us to look at, while the fourth box was filled with blank slides for us to experiment with.

Due to time constraints, today we were only able to touch the surface of the microscopic world, but we had fun in the short time available.

To start our learning time off, we watched this helpful video found on YouTube.

Then we headed over to our borrowed “scope” and did some exploring of our own. We were able to look at several slides and admire the wonder often unseen. 

I wish we had more time to dedicate to this today, but it’s out the door we go… off for another, different adventure!

Have you studied microscopes before? Which was your favorite specimen to examine?