Back to OpticsPlanet. Awhile back we did a study on astronomy. Lacking a good quality telescope (actually lacking a telescope at all) we relied on the naked eye and pictures in books. I can’t help but think how much more fun that would have been if we’d had a real telescope.

More recently, I’ve tried to show the children the visible Mars without much success. Since I have 39 years experience in looking at the sky, I was able to pick it out, but the children were not nearly as successful. It’s a little hard to explain “look over the top of granddaddy’s house, where it would be if you could see granddaddy’s house from here”, especially when they also have only a marginal sense of direction at best.

OpticsPlanet has an incredible selection of telescopes in all price ranges, including Meade Telescopes, Celestron and Bushnell.

It’s been long enough now that I think we could pull off another unit on stars. Or do birds again, this time with the help of binoculars. In fact, it might be worth revisiting several areas we’ve covered with the addition of good tools. Of course, there’s always independent study, and I’ve had reasonable success with just leaving a new “school tool” out and not saying a word about it 🙂
*cass begins to ponder what to study for the next school term*