Take a Look at Nature through a Magnifying Glass

Chances are that somewhere around the house you have those inexpensive plastic magnifying glasses that are geared to kids. You might even have a slightly nicer magnifying glass (i.e. a magnifying glass that cost more than fifty cents) in a drawer for those times you need to take a closer look at something tiny.

Unless your child would throw a magnifying glass at a tree or a sibling, consider giving your child a slightly nicer magnifying glass.
By ‘slightly nicer’ I mean a magnifying glass that costs a couple of bucks but that gives your child a better view of what they are looking at.

Those inexpensive plastic lenses scratch and become fairly useless after a short time.) Don’t spend so much money that you’ll be upset if a lens gets dropped or banged about even if your child is trying to be careful.

After you have the magnifying glass, you need to show your child how to use it. Most children hold the lens against their eye as if it were a monocle. The proper use it to hold the magnifying glass close to the object you wish to magnify. Your child’s eye should be at least six-to-eight inches away from the lens, more is okay.

Now, encourage your child to look at a leaf, noticing the veins and the cells. Then turn the leaf over and get a clearer view of the stomata, through which the tree takes in carbon dioxide and releases oxygen. Don’t worry about knowing the names of the things your child is looking at; all you want to start giving them is a view of things that are often overlooked.

Take a close look at flowers and notice the spotted patterns on the petals of some flowers; these help direct insects toward the pollen and nectar the plant offers. Encourage your child to look at blades of grass, found feathers, crystals in rocks. Once you offer your child a more effective magnifying glass and show them how to use it it won’t matter whether your child is two or ten, they will move about the yard or wherever they are exploring this newly discovered territory of the tiny.

Check out other ways kids can Become an Animal Detective.