Uncle Milton Review & Giveaway

My little guy is all about science lately. He wants to know how things work and soak up as much information as he can. My father in law is an engineer, and he can do all kinds of cool things with B that I have no clue about and lucky for us, we also just discovered a great company that creates products geared for kid friendly science exploration.

Uncle Milton was founded in 1946 and creates toys, puzzles, and games that strive for play value and maximum kid appeal. They continue today building on their products to provide science centered, educational items for kids of all ages. To read more about Uncle Milton toys, click here. We got to work with Hillary, the PR and Marketing Manager for Uncle Milton. Hillary offered to send us some of Uncle Milton's most recent releases and we were happy to check them out.

Our Uncle Milton package arrived, it was a large box so even more exciting for the kids to open.

Our first find was this guy-The Anteater Bug Vac

Recently, Uncle Milton has teamed up with National Geographic to create an amazing line of toys, puzzles, and games based on the Nat Geo WILD network, (Nat Geo WILD launched in 2010, to find out more, click here) which is dedicated entirely to animals. The Nat Geo WILD line from Uncle Milton includes 9 products, all of them cooler than the next. Check out the Wild RC Tarantula, Wild RC Snake, Wild Pet's Eye View Camera, Wild Hatchers, Wild Bugs, Mini Wildlife Projector, Curl and Coil Snake Light, Big Dig Bear Claw, and Anteater Bug Vac.

The Anteater Bug Vac is cool for many reasons, especially when you are a 5 year old boy. It is also pretty cool to moms when it has been featured on "The Today Show" and chosen as a Top 10 toy at the 2012 American International Toy Fair. The Anteater is a vacuum for bugs! After taking him out of the package and filling him with batteries (luckily we had the 4 AAs it required) we immediately switched him on. He is a bit loud if you aren't ready for it, but sounds just like a vacuum would. He has a decent suction from his long snout and a removable plastic cup belly. I told B he would have to wait until the next day to try it out for real. He couldn't wait to see how it really worked.

Beckett putting his Anteater Bug Vac to the test

It took a few tries to suck up the ants we found, minus a few that might how gotten squished in the process (oops!), but succeeded in capturing a few ants to study in the belly.We had really small ants and thought maybe bigger ants or bugs would have been captured easier.

We removed the plastic belly (just pull straight out) to get a better look, there is also a small magnifier on the top. A few ants apparently didn't make it all the way in to the cup and quickly crawled out and away from us.

Once we were done watching them, we lifted the lid and released them unharmed back to the driveway. We then snapped the belly back into the vac and we were ready to start again. Overall it was a fun first try for B and his Anteater Bug Vac. We will have continue to hunt some bigger bugs for observation too!

Our second find was this-Earth in my Room

Earth in My Room is from a series of In My Room toys by Uncle Milton. It joins a bunch of other cool products including Fireflies in My Room, 3D Star Theater, Shooting Stars in My Room, Star Theater, Moon in My Room, Star Planetarium, Star Theater Pro, Dream Fairy Room Light, Solar System in My Room, and Rainbow in My Room.

We got it out of the box and added all the batteries in (it took quite a few, 4 AAs in the Earth, 2 AAAs in the remote). The remote has both an automatic and manual button on it. The Earth is lightweight and very realistic.

The globe is flat backed and easily mounts on a wall, we chose B's closet because it get nice and dark there for the best results.

Here is our Earth in My Room in action (sorry for the blur, it took the camera a bit to refocus with the lack of light)

The light will illuminate from East to West automatically or manually. It shows the Earth in great detail and B loves watching and asking what has just lit up. It is both realistic and bright. It does also have an automatic shutoff or a small on/off switch on the back.

Both of our Uncle Milton products have generated a new understanding of some science for B. He has become more interested in the United States especially and likes to watch the different parts of his Earth in My Room glow. He also likes hunting bugs to suck up in his Anteater Bug Vac.

Want It? Buy It!

Get shopping for some fantastic Uncle Milton items here. In addition to Nat Geo WILD and In My Room, Uncle Milton also creates toys from these popular brands and categories: Dinosaur Train, John Deere, Fireworks Lightshow, Horrible Pets, National Geographic, Star Wars, and Tarantula Planet. "Like" Uncle Milton on Facebook and tell them MBP sent you! Follow Uncle Milton on Twitter and see what they have going on today. Visit Uncle Milton on YouTube to see video of the products they offer. Subscribe to the Uncle Milton Newsletter by clicking here.

Want It? Win It!

Enter to win your own Earth in My Room from Uncle Milton Toys. Just use the Rafflecopter entry form below to enter to win. Remember- if the entry field appears in BOLD, it's mandatory. Open to US residents only.

Thank you to Hillary and Uncle Milton Toys for some fun new toys to distract us from this horrible heatwave and offering one for our readers as well!

Thanks and Good Luck!

~Steph~

Disclosure: Other than the above mentioned products, which I received directly from this sponsor for review purposes, I was not compensated for facilitating this review. All opinions expressed are my own. Your experience may differ. Mommy's Block Party and its team members are not responsible for prize fulfillment or shipment- this is the understood responsibility of the giveaway sponsor.

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