engaging kids in the world of microscopics :: smartscope from ravensburger

When the opportunity came up for me to try out the Ravensburger Smartscope I was pretty excited. As a parent I always want to get my kids more engaged with anything science related that I can, especially if it excites them. As a homeschooling parent I have long been on the lookout for an affordable and effective way for my kids to magnify the things around us for exploring without getting a ridiculously expensive, yet cheaply made, microscope for ‘kids.’

If you haven’t already figured it out the Smartscope is much like a microscope, except it uses your smartphone or tablet to help magnify and display the item your budding scientists want to check out! I love that I can work with my kiddos to use my smartphone or tablet to magnify everyday items or even things they have an interest in seeing closer with minimal effort and zero headache.

The Smartscope did come with some assembly required, but between the instruction manual and easy to follow instructional video that you can find by scanning the provided QR code it was a snap. I had the entire thing put together in less than 10 minutes even with my two helpers hovering nearby and we were quickly able to look at our first item.

The Smartscope has two levels of magnification and is easy to use, the recommended age is 8+ years, but even my 6 year old will be able to use it with some supervision and training. It comes with a removable light source, a storage pouch, petri dish, pipette, tweezers, object older, cover plate, and support for use with tablets (so they have something to rest on properly for balance).

As you can see from the photos we had a lot of fun exploring the world around us and I’m sure there will be daily requests for “What can we look at?” with everything from single piece building blocks (it just looks bigger kids!) to pieces of flowers, more bugs, and everything in between. If you have a smartphone or tablet and a kid who enjoys learning more about the world around them this is a great resource!