The Parents Magazine Battat Busy Zoo activity cube is a fun-filled learning experience. The activities are simple enough for one-year-olds to understand and large enough for them to manipulate with ease. On top, they can move animals along tracks or twirl wooden shapes along looping wire. Choices around the four sides include rotating picture blocks until they form a picture of a variety of animals; turning any one of interconnecting gears to make them all spin; opening and closing a door and window. For the future, reversible alphabet blocks show a picture and its initial letter on one side, and the upper and lower case letter on the reverse. The various finger and hand manipulations will develop the muscles later used in learning to write.