NEWS$show=/search/label/news

Here's where you'll find all the latest news about technology for children. We love to follow cool new inventions on Kickstarter and we hunt out all the latest announcements about tech toys and gadgets for the coming Christmas holidays. You'll also get our take on children's technology stories in the media.

REVIEWS$show=/search/label/review

Our kids technology product reviews are intended to help you work out whether a toy, gadget or kit is a good fit for your child or family. There's lots of cool stuff available, but is it the right choice for the child or teenager that you are buying for? We'll help you make the right choices and get the best value for money.

GIFT GUIDES$show=/search/label/gift%20guide

Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and friends assemble. We create gift lists to help you make good choices for kids technology which helps them develop the right skills for the future. We research the best in Coding Toys and Games, Making / Craft Tools and Kits, STEM/STEAM related gifts, Programmable Robots, Electronics Kits and Gadgets for Tech Age Kids and Teens.

PROJECTS$show=/search/label/project

Get crafty with technology. Here we'll post all our ideas and projects using technology to get creative and making with kids. You'll find anything from making a lemon battery to a glow-in-the-dark Minecraft sword. Our projects are tried and tested on our own kids or at events we run, so we are sure you can have a go at home with your kids. Some of our projects use specific tech gadgets which we provide links for you to purchase.

STEM$show=/search/label/stem

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. In recent years there is an increased focus in these areas of study. We like to include Art and Design too, so we often talk about STEAM (A stands for Art). At Tech Age Kids we believe Coding is a new literacy and children need to understand how technology works, practice making skills and grow in their curiosity to make a better future for us all.

CODING$show=/search/label/coding

Coding is increasingly being recognised as an important skill for children to learn. Some will learn to code at school or at a coding club, but it's brilliant if they get support at home too.

ELECTRONICS$show=/search/label/electronics

We think it's really important for kids to get hands-on with electronics and learn how to make circuits and write code to control hardware. Younger kids can start with conductive playdough. For kids who like to combine craft and tech, littleBits are fab. And we love SAM Labs wireless electronics components for making it easy for kids to make Internet of Things inventions. Lots of electronics kits for kids have support for the Arduino microprocessor environment. The DuinoKit Jr is one of our favourites. Arduino is a fab skill for older kids and teens to develop.

ROBOTICS$show=/search/label/robotics

We love robots at Tech Age Kids, especially programmable ones. We've got lots of them and write reviews and projects that use them. Our programmable robots for kids buying guide is a good place to start if you're not sure what's available. Roby the mBot Meccano robot dog is one of our popular projects and has been with us to lots of events. Our Ozobot LEGO trailer is fab for kids who love LEGO and robots.

MAKING AND CRAFT$show=/search/label/making

We're advocates of the creative use of technology, but this needs to be balanced with developing physical skills such as papercraft, woodwork, clay modelling, technical drawing and soldering. If children don't develop these skills as they grow up then physical making projects can become frustrating rather than fun. The Maker Community uses the term 'making' as a broad term to include all sorts of artisan skills or craft activities. Being able to make things can lead to life-long hobbies or even careers. It's a great feeling to be able to take a project from an idea in your head to a real object that does something. We're particularly interested to explore products that combine maker skills with tech skills such as electronics but others focus purely on the physical making skills that are still important to modern making.

Fun with a USB Microscope

Daisy Under the Microscope
We've been having fun with our new USB microscope for children. I've been impressed with how well it works and the kids have really taken to it and can operate it themselves which is brilliant.

I decided to get them a microscope after they had lots of fun using one during a hands-on session for kids at the Science Museum. It took some research to find the right one, but I'm very happy with the results.


Using the Microscope

 On a recent trip to the park the boys had lots of fun collecting things to take home and look at. Usually I'm telling them to leave sticks behind, and don't pick up that dirty bit of bark, and no, we really don't need any more stones however pretty. But not on this trip! I took a ziplock bag and they had great fun.
When we got home they set to work with the microscope. One of my favorites is the daisy above. I was amazed at the level of detail we got. We also looked at moss, grass, leaves, stones and tree bark. But we gave the ant requested by my 4 year old son a reprieve on this occasion as we hadn't brought a bug pot with us.

Micro Fiber Cloth Cloth
At home we found lots more cool stuff to look at. I really liked looking at the microfiber cloth that we use to clean the touch screen. You can even see the piece of dirt it has picked up! I think it's a bit of moss or tree bark from our nature experiments.

We also enjoyed looking at the kids hair, their clothing, 3D printed objects, surfaces that looked flat but were really bumpy, soft toys and lots more.

My 6 year old son brought a pine cone home from school because he wanted to examine it under the microscope at home. He chose one that had opened up well because he wanted to be able to see inside. Cool.

Choosing the Microscope

It took me a while to choose a microscope. I quickly established that I wanted a USB microscope so that we could easily take pictures and videos of what we were looking at. And that it should be hand-held so we could easily point it at objects like the kids hair, clothing and toys.

I didn't need any fancy features, but I wanted it to work well. I was willing to pay a bit extra to make sure it would be really usable (but I hate paying too much for things!) At first I assumed that the microscopes made for kids would be poor quality gimmicks and looked at the regular hand-held microscopes. But these seemed to get poor reviews and be difficult to configure.

So I went back to looking at the kids models and found good reviews on the Magic Pencil USB Microscope.

Our Magic Pencil Microscope

You don't need to focus the microscope you just point it at the object and move it around until you have the image in focus on the computer screen. This works much better than I expected although you do need a steady hand. You could use it with a clamp of some sort, I think we'll set something up.

The microscope is illuminated and operates as a webcam so you can use web cam software with it. It comes with software and I've also used it with Yawcam. The fact that it works as a webcam is quite neat. You could stream or record video, say for a science experiment in progress. We'll have to try that.

The daisy and microfiber cloth images above were taken with our Magic Pencil microscope. 

You also get some educational software with the WebCam that allows kids to work through the activities and record their findings.


The Magic Pencil USB Microscope is available in 3 colors: pink, blue and yellow. We're not keen on the whole blue for boys thing so I chose the yellow version. The prices are sometimes different for the different colors so you might need to compromise on color to get the best deal.

Buy: Magic Pencil Microscope @ Amazon


24 days of Scratch coding book cover and cute penguin
Name

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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children: Fun with a USB Microscope
Fun with a USB Microscope
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Tech Age Kids | Technology for Children
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