Gears! Gears! Gears! Old McGear’s Farm Review
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Isn’t this Old McGear’s Farm set cute? It is the very first in the Gears! Gears! Gears! set we have ever played with, so I was eager to check it out. I LOVE the bright colors and the fact that through building and using the gears the kids can learn cause and effect.
It was very simple to set up and the kids were eager to try it out! The barn you see in the back is cardboard, however, and we couldn’t get it to stay up while the kids were playing so we just put it back in the box and haven’t pulled it out since. We also ended up packing the white fencing away too. But the kids and I liked the extra tractor to drive around!
There are a lot of farm animals included in this set which were all very easy to attach to the gears. I think that was one of my kids favorite things….watching the animals spin around!
It comes with 85 durable plastic pieces including Ma and Pa Farmer, the dog, rooster, horse, sheep, pig, cow, corn stalks, and more. It also has a silo on it which was pretty neat to see.
My youngest was a little too young for the set as it’s geared for ages 4+ but he has spent his time the last week going back and forth to the Old McGear’s Farm set and cranking the crane which carries a little hay bale in it. He loves cranes and it was very easy for him to operate the handle!
We have it set up on our train table so that the kids can make the gears work without us having to continually rebuild it for them! You do have to get a few of the pieces in the correct place for it to work so your 4-5 year olds maybe have a problem building it properly by themselves.
However they can still put the gears next to each other and spin them without the handle which my son had no problems doing (he is 4 1/2 years old).
My oldest son loved turning the handle which made all the other gears work. Although if you’re not careful the handle for the gear does come off easily which was a little frustrating for us. When the handle stays on properly it is really a lot of fun!
My son had a great time switching the gears around, moving the animals to new locations, and watching the entire set spin around as he turned the handle. I think what made it especially nice for him is that this gear set really covers quite a bit of area on the table when you spread it out as you can see below and he found it fascinating that he could rotate just one handle and the entire contraption moved!
This is an up close photo of the crane to move the hay bale. I really appreciated that there was more than just a handle to turn in this set. There was the gears handle, this crane handle, and the tractor to vroom around.
Honestly I have mixed feelings about this set. I absolutely LOVE how cute it is and I LOVE the idea of learning cause and effect by building gears together but we also had a few issues (the barn not staying up and the gear handle slipping off easily) that made it not work quite as smoothly as I was expecting.
We don’t use the barn at all unless we set it up completely separate from the gears set. All of the plastic pieces are very durable though (good for young kids!) and I love that it comes with plenty of farm animals and accessories to play with. I will say, however, that even though we had a few kinks in this set I’ve had it out on my kids train table and every single day for the past week so far they go over there multiple times a day to play with it and use it.
So even though I personally had a few kinks to mention to you guys my kids still use it and I would still consider purchasing other Gears! Gears! Gears! sets to go along with this one.
Disclosure: I was not compensated for this review. I received the above set to try in order to form my own opinions. All opinions are my own.