Life Science has always been one of my favorite topics and as a former Science teacher, I want to make sure that I pass on my love of the subject to Riley.  Now I may be a little biased in this opinion, but I don't think that the importance of Science can be stressed to children enough.  It is a subject which utilizes reading, writing, mathematics, deductive reasoning and creative thinking and teaches us the way our world works.

I love getting out in the backyard with Riley and examining every leaf, rock, insect and spider we come across with her microscope and hand lens.  Sometimes though, finding interesting subjects to look at can be a little difficult and finding unusual items is obviously even tougher.  In situations like this, it's important to spark a child's curiosity with a great set of prepared microscope slides.

Thanks to Educational Insights, we can take our microscopic discoveries to a whole new level with a set of 12 prepared slides.  Keep reading to learn more!

The Prepared Slides, Set of 12, from Educational Insights is a great beginner series of specimens which can be used with any standard microscope.  These high-quality prepared microscope slides are neatly labeled on the right-hand side with a large preprinted label and the specimens themselves are protected from harm via a permanently affixed cover slip.  These twelve microscope slides come in a storage tray for safekeeping and include a variety of interesting specimens:

• Daphnia
• Plasmodes Mus Sec
• Spirogyra
• Insect Wing
• Fish Scales
• Ant
• Onion Skin
• Cotton Fibre
• Pollen
• Onion Root Tip
• Oleander Leaf
• Pine Stem

One of my favorite features of the Prepared Microscope Slides Set is that all of these items are completely contained within the cover slip so that you don't have to worry about contamination with a live specimen that you might have found and prepared.  Young children are notorious for putting things in their mouths and wanting to touch everything, so that a sample of dirty pond water, though interesting to look at under a microscope, is potentially dangerous.  With the prepared slides, you can open up a brand new world to a young child in a completely safe manner.

The only thing that disappointed me somewhat is that the prepared slides I received are not what are listed on the Educational Insights web page.  For instance, they list great specimens like a rainbow trout scale, rabbit hair, alpaca hair, wool, silk, peacock feather and canary plumage, NONE of which are included in this set.

If you have an inquisitive child on your hands this summer, give them the gift of exploration and discovery with their very own set of 12 prepared slides from Educational Insights.  These well-designed, high quality microscope specimens are the perfect compliment to a microscope and will have them yearning to learn more!  Who says summer break has to equal brain drain?  :idea:

Disclosure:  I received the Prepared Microscope Slides, Set of 12 from Educational Insights in order to facilitate my review. No other compensation was received. This product review is based on my own personal experiences with this item and is completely honest and objective.