pollen
It was a joy to watch my three friends, aged 5, 8 and 9 years old, gather their specimens from outside and head to their new Ravensburger Smartscope to magnify, identify, explore and learn. We started with pollen (since we were all sneezing in the advent of spring), a rose pedal, grass seedlings and bark. We used our iPad to examine our treasures and take pictures but a smartphone or other device works also. The kids were fascinated with what they saw–veins in the leaves and petals, red tip at the end of the grass, linear salt crystals, and the spurs that come off the back legs of a tick. The descriptive conversation flowed fast and easily. You can’t help compare before and after appearances using the Smartscope. “Look it, look it!” “The evergreen looks like a braid. The pollen is woven with hairs on the edges.” They couldn’t get enough of this magnification adventure. The 9 year-old re-appeared with his jar of precious found 
objects which included several shark teeth and shells. The kids had great fun snapping pictures of the different objects which completely changed close up. They agreed that the sharks’ teeth were the most interesting although in the middle of checking out their objects one of the kids said, “What if I stuck my finger in there? I’m gonna look at my nail. Let’s try Sam’s!!” Ravensburger includes a booklet filled with “places to start” such as water droplets, insects and spiders with suggestions as to what to look for, as well as descriptions of detail and facts to discover about critters and plants found on their poster of the forest, water, meadows, beach and home. My 9 year-old finally looked up from the Smartscope and said, “I’m gonna have some fun times with this!”
