This month we’ve been busy utilizing our new HP Envy Rove desktop, and it’s super-hero secret identity as a table-top tablet as well! While I claimed the Envy Rove 20 as mine in my office, it’s so easy to carry it upstairs and use on the dining room table as well for family activities. We’ve also been putting our new Envy 5530 e-All-In-One printer to use – me printing tags for a huge consignment sale I did, and the kids using it to print off coloring pages and more. I’ve been really happy with the 5530 e-All-In-One printer and love that it’s wireless capabilities have not let me down even once. Often I get frustrated with wireless printers, “Why isn’t it listening?” I’ll say when I’m trying to print something wirelessly for the umpteenth time and the printer decides not to respond. Not so with our HP Envy Printer, hooray!
As part of our experience with HP, we were sent a book called Creative IQ filled with ideas and activities for both teachers and parents to use to help children develop a wealth of skills in a fun way. HP gave us a Brain Training Challenge: choose from a group of activities and do them with the kids. This week, we decided to look at a task on page 68 of Creative IQ: Develop Design and Categorization Skills: My Dream Bedroom.
The idea behind this activity is to have a child create their dream bedroom in a very basic drawing, like a blueprint. Then, an adult takes the drawing and photocopies it several times (in our case using our fantastic HP Envy 5530 e-All-In-One printer). Then, you give the child a different medium to use on each copy to put together the other elements of the bedroom.
For example, Nevaeh (5) used crayon on her first attempt, plotting out colors of carpet, her bed and the walls. Then, we switched to pencil crayons on another attempt which allowed her to get a little more detailed on what went where, and she could practice her printing skills ensuring that she pointed out things that were important.
Of course, you can tailor an activity like this to suit specific ages; a 12-year-old may not use crayons but may use carbon or other mediums to really bring the creations to life.
Check out the Creative IQ website here with more information about the book and a link to buy it now for $24.95 with free shipping.
Very good job! Awesome dream bedroom.
She has some great ideas- super colorful!
a future interior designer
my son would love this and would incorporate the star chart info for his wall designs i’m sure! actually, my daughters would too…
Wonderful imagination. The stuff you can do 😉
great ideas 🙂
What a great idea! So creative
That sounds like a great activity! I remember doing this when I was a child, although I didnt have a computer or printer to help me out! It gets the kids a great eye for being creative with different activities. You may have a future interior designer in the works 🙂
I love how the “Creative IQ” book has so many different activities. Seems you can never be left with a “BORED” child!
I really like that you can tailor an activity to the age. This would be a great learning tool, that was fun!
Looks like an awesome activity!
my bedroom would be all blue and no sign of pink though as a child we didn’t get a say in what our shared bedroom looked like.
What a creative idea! I like how you can tailor anything you do for the perfect age group. I like the bedroom ideas up there!
Creative IQ is defiantly a product I need to invest in for my son 🙂
looks awesome!
Great way to get the creative minds to work
Love the idea of letting kids design their own bedroom. Anything that encourages creativity is great! I will have to check this book out. Thanks!
What a great activity to get the kids’ imagination going .
I love this. My kids kind of already do that by sketching a picture and then photocopying it a few times to colour and see which way they like best.
What a cool program, did anyone get a bedroom makeover? lol I really love how it gets the little ones thinking and designing.
my daughter would just love this! She wants to make over her bedroom. SHe’s super creative and I”m sure this would help
Awesome idea, great job, very pretty!
So create! Great job!
I love the colors your daughter chose. This would be a great tool for kids to design their own rooms and they would take pride in their work.
How very cool! I’d love to design my own dream bedroom lol
I would love the Creative IQ, it really encourages creativity in kids. Your daughter did a great job designing her bedroom, love the colors.
What a great way to get our kids involved… Creative IQ sounds wonderful… 🙂
This is a fun challenge! Great colours!
Terrific! Hey at my age I can use some brain training myself! Wow what a great way for kids to learn
What a fabulous way for a child to create and learn. I actually would love to give it a try..lol. 🙂
Beautiful colour and drawing. The Creative IQ book sounds amazing.
This is very literally creative ‘exercise’. This would have been fun when I was young.
Ohhhh I want to design a dream bedroom, and kitchen and livingroom and so many other things. THIS is an awesome program. I am amazed at what you have shared so far. Thank you.
I check out the site and the book looks like a great gift. So my ideas.
the Envy Rove 20 would certainly become the kids “toy” in our house 🙂
Our kids would love this.
Great ideas.
I love the name Nevaeh , my niece named her daughter that..
This is such a fun way to get the kids involved and stay interested in a project.
perfect for the little one that wants to keep changing her bedroom furniture around and wanting
different colors of bed linens, etc.
This looks like an amazing app and one that we would certainly use. HP has an endless list of possibilities.
My older kids would love something like this, they’re very creative and this could definitely harbour some creativity in their little fingers.
Love this, I know quite a few older “kids” who could be kept busy for hours with activities like this
What an awesome product- love children’s imaginations
This really brings forward kids creativity.
very creative!
You can do so many fun and creative things with it 🙂
I love this part “HP gave us a Brain Training Challenge: choose from a group of activities and do them with the kids.” so important
Love how creative and multipurpose the envy is! Your daughter also has a great imagination for her bedroom!
My wireless printer drives me nuts, I could so benefit from a dummy (me)-proof one 😛
Super cute ideas you’ve come up with here!
I would have fun with that too, creating a bedroom and coloring it
It’s great to see children have fun with technology.
My daughter has loved technology since she first discovered that mommy’s phone has games and colouring apps. 🙂 This would be a great way to get her to plan out her room design/layout 🙂
What fun! My gang would love designing their own bedrooms!
this would be great fun.
I would have fun with this. This is great for all ages.
WOW! The things you can do these days! This looks like so much fun!
When I was a kid, I used to love using home design/drafting software to design dream homes and rooms 🙂
looks like fun
I bet my son and niece would have a great time designing a bedroom like this!
awww a young interior designer in the making. i wish i could do this when i was a kid!
Sounds like a great book to keep kids stimulated through a long winter.
Sounds fun! I bet she had a great time!
So cool! Love the design a dream bedroom idea.
The technology is amazing!
Cute craft idea
Really cute! I hope there is a gift wrapping room! 😉
Good to know that wireless capabilities are so good with the HP Envy Rove. That’s something I have issues with sometimes in our home. It would be nice to not have to deal with wireless issues anymore.
i would love this for my son
That’s a wonderful idea. Creating their dream bedroom on paper first does help with minimize all that moving the furniture around.
Interesting concepts. I can see my granddaughter loving this one.
Great challenge! Good for rainy days!
I love this! So fun but intensely educational!
While my daughter is still a little young for Creative IQ, I am excited that there are programs like this available for when she’s older…I think she’s a creative soul and will love things like this!
I liked your article Developing Design & Categorization Skills With Creative IQ.
It’s great to see children have fun with technology.
What a great idea to have kids do. Looks like it was fun.
what a fun idea for little kids, my kids would love this concept!
Love the new bedroom design my boys love drawing, we recently got them to sit down and draw how they wanted their bedrooms situated and what color they wanted to paint their bedrooms as well, they had so much fun
I like projects which focus creativity.
That is sure something to get there imaginations going!~!
I am getting ready to makeover my bedroom and I could sure use this Develop Design and Categorization Skills: My Dream Bedroom tool to help me. I get so frustrated trying to do over a room that most times I stick with the basic blueprint..
Love this idea!
Maybe I could use this for my living room!
My Grandchildren would absolutely love this!
what a great way to challenge kids!
love what can be done with technology nowadays, amazing!
I have the same issue with my wireless printer now! Sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t!
Great idea!
Fun for for all ages including myself
Love that idea!
I would have fun with this as well. What a great idea!
I have to agree with you about the “other’ wireless printers. Mine often is NOT listening. Thanks for the review
That is awesome, and a neat way to color without the kids getting bored right away. Lots of fun !!
my niece has already begun drawing up her own house.
Looks like a lot of fun
Kids love decorating their own bedroom. Even if their bedroom is not currently like their dream room, they love using their imaginations.
What a great way to learn by using these apps to create and plan a dream bedroom. Sounds like so much fun and great that your children are learning at the same time!
Really great looking program – we have such a tech advanced society today – it’s great to keep and start kids on board with that technology and keep it educational!
this is so cool! Another great way to use their imaginations
So cool! Wonderful idea!
This is such a Cool Idea. I wish they had this when I was a Kid! This is something that even th “Big” kids would have fun with
We’re preparing to transition from crib to big girl bed. This would be great to have a preview of what her room could look like. We’re hoping to buy furniture once and just buy bedding that corresponds with her age. With this brain training challenge she could redesign as she gets older
Very cool!
This is so cool!
This is just too awesome. I wish there were things around like this, when I was a kid. My son is so lucky.
This is cool! I think I got to pick the colour of my walls and my headboard when I was a kid, this would have been fun.
really cool
awee very pretty. so many ways to get creative 🙂
I can’t help but think kids these days really are lucky to have these resources at hand to both enhance fun time and learning. All of these fun activities make me wish I was a child for a day just to experience the fun/thrill with these things.
Interesting activities, looks like the book filled with many of them. Kids like to participate and learn, they create something new and excited about that, I am really impressed.
Very cool!