New Microscope

A few months back, I invested in an expensive microscope. Prior to this, we have a toy microscope and it was fun to use. Since Reese is already doing high school science, it is only appropriate we get a proper microscope for his studies. 

I have been super busy with the new house renovation and then the move. Finally settled down and yesterday we explored the new microscope. I can only say WOW! The images were so clear and beautiful. The details that we weren't able to see before were amazing. Having a mechanical stage on the microscope makes the whole experience of looking at slides a breeze. What you pay is what you get eh? :)

I managed to capture some of the images on my iPhone to share with you but the photos do not do justice to the actual images..... 

Vitamin and wing

Onion cell and fibre

Another fibre and leaf

Educational Toys: Snap Circuits

Recently I chanced upon Snap Circuits and knew instantly Reese will like it. Did some research and bought it through a group buy with some mummies. I paid RM320 for Snap Circuit Extreme SC-750 model. It is not sold here and the only way you can get it is to buy from eBay (cheaper). 

Snap Circuit Extreme SC-750

First time assembling a circuit

Expert after a few days....

Reese played with it non stop for a few days straight. He was so excited each time he joints the circuits to do see the outcomes. After a while, he began experimenting with his own circuit designs. Reese now knows how current flows, names of electronic components and their functions like transistors, diode, oscillator and etc...

It is a nice set with clear instructions, easy to built circuits... just snap them in place. :) 

Lego and other Building Bricks

From young, Reese enjoys building things. He started with Mega blocks and wooden blocks. He would spend hours building mainly structures and play destruction after that. Since early last year, he took a serious interest in Lego bricks and my very own collection of Lego bricks became Reese's! Our collection has been growing ever since and it is increasingly difficult to just put all the Lego parts into big boxes. 

So for now, our Lego parts are sorted according to parts and store them in Ikea boxes. A big part of my living room has become the Lego play area. In fact it is quite permanent! 

What you see here is my living room filled with some of his Lego and other building bricks. 

My solution to his Lego bricks. All sorted according to parts. In the future will have to build proper storage just for his Lego bricks!

Lego is really a great investment because it allows a child endless hours of creative and fun play. Unfortunately it is very expensive here in Malaysia. :( BUT we found some alternatives! I think I did write a post on other building bricks some time back. Anyway.... do check out building bricks from China. 

If you like architectural buildings, look up 'Wange' brand. If you look at my picture above, you will see the Eiffel Tower, Burj Al Arab, Tiananmen and etc... These are all from Wange building bricks. They are dirt cheap as compared to Lego. On average, each set costs about RM149-159! Lego's Eiffel tower is about RM2k (bigger). The cons of these alternatives... quality is not as good as Lego, harder to fix them due to unclear instructions and fitting of the bricks together at times can be a challenge. Definitely need adult supervision. But hey.... they look great! There are a few other China brands and some are really lousy. 

Besides Wange, we found a really good quality Korean brand called Oxford. You almost cannot differentiate these bricks from Lego! They are cheap and instructions are clear. Definitely a good buy. They have mostly construction and military themed sets. They are slightly more expensive than the China brands. They are very generous with figurines too. :)

There is a shop in Centre Point, 1U that sells these Lego compatible bricks. Name of shop is Dream Factory at the old phase. 

Some nice stuff Reese built:

Reese designed and built this from scratch all by himself. It is a fort. 

Started his renovation on daddy's building

 After renovation. Reese completely transformed the building!