Gears Pet Playland

Get Your Kid in Gears

• What: Gears! Gears! Gears! Pet Playland
• When: 3 years and up
• Why: Build confidence and fun
• Where: Amazon

If your child loves mechanical items, and you haven’t introduced them to gears, check out these Gears! Gears! Gears! sets from Learning Resources.

We’ve had our basic set for around eight years, and my kids continue to play with it. The basic eight spoke gears connect to each other as well as the boards and connectors included in the set. Kids can use the guide to build cars and caterpillars or come up with their own ideas. We’ve used ours to make a ski lift, and a pulley, so I recently expanded our collection with the Pet Playland set.

In addition to five boards and many more gears, it also includes four different pets: a pink bunny, a blue dog, a green cat, and an orange dog. These animals attach securely to the gears to introduce another element of fun to the moving parts. This particular set also includes a tea cup ride, an airplane that goes around, and even a two seat ferris wheel to give the pets a whirl. 

All the Gears! Gears! Gears! sets work with each other, so you can expand your collection as needed. The boards can be a bit difficult for the smallest hands to couple or disconnect, and kids may take a few tries to grasp the concept that gears turning in different directions won’t cooperate. But the pieces hold up very well to repeat play, and each set comes with multiple types of each piece, so losing one doesn’t hinder playing. In fact, our box is the only part that looks worn after so many years. 

No matter which set you choose, from outer space to light up action, kids will enjoy bringing their creations to life with the turn of a crank.