Gears! Gears! Gears! Movin' Monkeys

Kids can make monkeys fly through trees with 136 colorful plastic pieces. Included are gears, cranks, connectors and baseplates.
— Little kids love this gear toy, which is made just for them, says Tara Trew, sales associate at Growing Tree Toys & Books in State College, Penn.
— The kit comes with instructions for building a “gears jungle,” or kids can improvise and build their own.
— Movin’ Monkeys is the first Gears! set for small children.

Featured in:

TDmonthly's Top 10 Most Wanted Alt. Building Kits (7/1/2005)

TDmonthly Review:

What is It?
Measuring Monkeys teaches kids how to use a ruler by moving plastic monkeys up and down a tree-shaped game-post. Kids spin the wheel to determine how far up or down the tree to move and then place their monkey at the appropriate measurement with a banana-shaped peg.

What We Thought
The game teaches kids the American (non-metric) measuring system while meeting the litmus test of all educational toys: creating enough fun that kids hardly notice they’re learning something.

Who Would Like It
Any kindergarten or grade school kid who needs a fun introduction to fractions.

--Tim Connolly