Gears! Gears! Gears! is a fabulous range of creative, building sets using tactile gears and cranks to wind the pieces round, creating a magical moving scene. We received the Movin’ Monkeys set from Learning Resources to play with.
The Movin’ Monkeys set comprises of 136 pieces which includes base plates, coloured gears, cranks, tree parts, monkeys and a sticker sheet to decorate some of the gears. There is also a very easy to follow instruction booklet which allows you to build the entire scene as shown on the box. The instructions are clear and broken down into manageable sections.
Miss M immediately got to work building the first tree and added the gears. This gave her a little bit of a challenge to follow the build instructions and construct the pieces correctly. To build the whole set is quite a challenge for a young person and although this set is aimed at age 4+, I’d definitely suggest a slightly older age would be better. Miss M is 6 and I feel this is a great construction set for her and something very different to the normal construction toys you see. She did require some guidance and assistance but I’m sure she’ll improve each time she plays.
Mister B decided to take it upon himself to build the palm trees. He gathered all the necessary pieces and within a few minutes he proudly showed off his bit of construction work! He was so pleased with his trees and carefully held onto them until the rest was built so he could put them in their correct places.
The pieces slot together quite easily although quite firmly so the set is quite durable and doesn’t fall apart easily once built. Once we had constructed the full build, it looked like a brightly coloured jungle scene and both children were eager to see what happened next. The next step was to add the monkeys which can be hung from numerous trees and branches either by the hooks on their hands or tails. Then it was time for the magic – would it work? Miss M slowly turned the handle on one of the gears and very cleverly all the cogs starting turning at the same time, the monkeys starting moving, spinning and swinging around the trees and my two children looked upon their Movin’ Monkeys jungle scene in amazement!
Both were keen to take turns in turning the gears and have fun moving the monkeys around to hang from different places, the Movin’ Monkeys construction set certainly gave good play value for a while once it was built.
What I like about Movin’ Monkeys is that it is both a construction set and then can be played with as well. You can be creative and build any design you like out of the set, however big or small. On her own Miss M likes to build just a small tree structure that she can get turning and is quite fascinated watching it move. This allows her to be creative independently and as she gets older she’ll become more confident in building bigger jungle scenes.
You can watch Movin’ Monkeys in action here:
Overall I think Movin’ Monkeys is an interesting, fun construction set that a child aged 6+ would get the most value out of. It’s made from brightly coloured, durable plastic pieces and has lots of fun features for the monkeys to play on. Being a large set with a lot of pieces, this enables you to be versatile with the building and use your imagination to create a different design every time.
A great bonus of this set is that it is compatible with any other Gears! Gears! Gears! sets so you can join them up and make a huge moving scene! Why not try a set today and see how creative you can be with moving gears?
All reviews are my own and my family’s opinions and Movin’ Monkeys was sent to us in order to write the review.
