Earlier this month I shared a post about my new HP Rove 20 desktop (or is it?) computer and our fun techie adventure as a family. We’ve been downloading and learning about a ton of Windows Apps and I’ve been thoroughly enjoying having a desk top in my office!
Along with the HP Envy Rove 20, I have a brand new HP Envy 5530 e-All-in-One printer that has been such a help these past few months preparing for a huge semi-annual consignment sale! It didn’t let me down once, always printing flawlessly with no jams, no network issues and with a ton of ink left after a month of work.
I was also sent a book called Creative IQ with wealth of information and ideas for parents and teachers to plan fun projects to enhance learning and skill development. Many projects are for elementary school age and above but we found several ways to incorporate them at home with my preschooler and toddler as well.
We looked at “Develop Improvisation, Planning and Implementation Skills: Order Anything You Want From My Restaurant“, sounds fancy right? Basically this activity involves choosing menu items with prices, creating the menu, then incorporating it into role playing in a pretend restaurant setting, adding up the bill, and more. Since my girls are a little young for some of the activities, we improvised. I used clip-art and selected items they were familiar with, then printed out a menu with easy to read words underneath. My 5 year old is learning to read so this was a fun activity to encourage that.
My 2-year-old played the picky customer (because she fits the role perfectly) with my 5-year-old being the restaurant owner. They had fun switching roles later too.
I was surprised how a simple activity like creating and then printing a menu on the HP Envy 5530 e All-in-One could entertain the kids. It added a new element to their restaurant play time, and helped my 5 year old with letter and word recognition. Great idea, thanks to Creative IQ!
The products to complete the HP Brain Training Challenge activities are supplied by HP Canada and Creative IQ™.
Very nice. Imaginations can go wild with the help of a printer. 😀 GReat for activities.
I think I would love to do this never mind kids 🙂 Great ideas in this software to help with math, organization and communication skills!
my kids would be all over this. love the ideas!
Will meet all my printing needs 😀
now thats cool
very cute
That would be a great activity to do with my 3yr old son as well. I am sure he would have fun making the menu then playing around with everything after printing what he wants. It might get him interested in eating some different foods for real too! LOL he is so picky!
Too cute!
That is so cute, It’s amazing what a little imagination (with help of course) can lead to hours and hours of fun! (restaurant)
Your a smart Mom, using the clip-art, then printing out a menu with easy to read words underneath. Educational and fun!
HP never stops to amaze me I have to say once again they have made an excellent product
amazing the different kind of ‘toys ‘ children can now play with – maybe you can use the menu to create your weekly dinners
Thats an awesome idea! Will have to try this 🙂
I have a 6.5 month old son, and I am always looking for new and creative things to do with him (also planning on things when he is older). The Creative IQ sounds like something that I would really like. And with having amazing HP products, life gets a bit more easier
This would be perfect for when I have my baby! It’ll be a great learning tool for him when it’s time to begin teaching him.
great idea! i love it ! <3
Very nice, great way to create.
Looks like a great printer and what a fun idea for the kids!
Great way to use a printer and getting the kids to learn all at the same time. Awesome use of technology and education.
what a fun idea for young kids.
Imaginative , brilliant, wonderful. Just big wows. Really!! I love it 🙂
Wow….we would love to try out the fun projects in that Creative iQ book. Thanks!
how fun! My kids would love this! I would love this for my kids!
Wow, that is so awesome, this would be great for my daughter and son too!
It is amazing how things like this can work the kids imaginations. I think its great for their development.
Looks like she had a ton of fun! Way too cute!
the Envy 5530 sounds like a wonderful product. I do a lot of craft sales and this would really come in handy. Your girls look like they had fun playing in their cute little kitchen.
This sounds fun! What a great gift for my grandkids this would make!
Very kool.. we use picture symbols for our son to communicate so we do a lot of printing…. I can see how Creative IQ could work with our AAC Users…. 🙂
This looks like a lot of fun! I would have loved to do that when I was a little girl. I’ve always been obsessed with food haha
What a great program, sure does cool things
My daughter played for hours in her little Tyke kitchen she got for Christmas one year. This would had made the experience all that much more fun for her. What a fabulous program.
Wow! I would have never thought to create a menu. That looks like a lot of fun.
Sounds like this would be a very effective and adaptable educational tool!
Working with kids in playschool and daycare the Creative IQ looks like a wonderful program that could help me in my work. I am going to check out the programs with this Creative IQ and see if I can use it!
That Creative IQ sure do look like a great tool. The grandkids would love using this to create many things.
I wonder if my child’s teacher have this book?.. would that be a good idea to give it to her for, lets say, Christmas?
Helps promote creativity!
This sounds like a blast!
fantastic ways to put printer to use,
This is so much cooler than the girls using their plastic barbie set!
sounds like fun for the grandkids and we could easily print a menu for their age on the printer
Sara would pretend to be a host of a cooking show with her Fisher Price Kitchen. She played with it so much and had such fun. I would have loved an app like this for her but I don’t think app was even a word in the 80s lol
What great fun, my 5 year old would make a great restaurant owner and I could be the picky customer (for a change)
I love the menu idea, very imaginative!
great idea! wonder if it would work for us in a year or two 🙂
Awesome – I remember playing restaurant as a child
Our kids would love this.
That is so awesome! My kids love playing in their play kitchen!!!
love the ideas
I absolutely love this!
great ideas for little ones
Aww they’re so sweet! We play that too, I’ll put food out on the coffee table and my son will “shop” for me lol
Great ideas for keeping little ones entertained as they love to create too!
I’m really interested in this book. I wonder if my mum, a 30 year teacher, has heard of it.. it sounds right up her alley. Any idea if this is available in standard book stores? I may need to take a look. I expect that my son’s too little (15 months) for most of what’s in there, but it’s never too early to start getting ideas.
the day i find a printer that actually has ink left after printing 3 pages will be the day i become loyal to the printer company and become their most successful sales person, indirectly of course for i love sharing a great thing with others….but so far, i have not found that printer…….i hope you are right that this one might be like that……..but afraid i am not that trusting about it for no other printer has proven to me yet that they can do it ;-(
creative IQ does sound like hours of fun
I use an HP printer for everything I do, completely reliable, effortless.
This sounds like it could entertain the whole family for hours at a time!
I love my HP printer. Now I have ideas on printing learning tools for my kids.
Creative IQ sounds interesting! I’ll have to look into getting it!
Great learning tool
What a great idea. looks like they had a lot of fun.
This is a great way to learn basic computer skills and educate.
I love that they sent you a book to help plan fun projects to enhance learning and skill development. Love that you were able to still use the ideas even though they were for older aged kids! Looks like you all had fun!
Love their little restaurant game! So cute!
sounds interesting
Love this idea and looks like soooooo much fun!
We just got an hp printer. It’s working great.
That looks like a very high quality printer!
The creative IQ book looks like a great read, loving all the HP stuff!
Great tool for the whole family!
The Ink lasted you over a month? I think I like this one.
Too too cute! I bet paper dolls would be fun too! 🙂
LOL, that’s such a cute game 🙂 That Creative IQ sounds like it’s full of lots of good ideas
I’m going to check if the library has the Creative IQ book. I’m always looking for new ideas to incorporate learning and creativity with play for my son.
inspirational
Amazing ideas for entertaining and teaching at the same time.
I have only have ever owned HP printers – love them!
Great fun and learning combined! HP has great products!
This would be a fun thing to do with my daughter…and OMG, I remember when I thought clip art was the best thing ever!
I liked your article Skill Development with HP and Creative IQ.
The “Develop Improvisation, Planning and Implementation Skills: Order Anything You Want From My Restaurant“
sounds like a great learning and fun game for kids.
This is a wonderful tool for development!
Creative IQ sounds like a book I would get for my niece who runs an after school program for 5 to 10 year olds. The HP printer is one I so want to own one of these days.
Such a cute game to play with your kids, I would use it to print coloring pages for my kids and coupons for myself!
Cute idea, me and my boys play restaurant all the time!! The creative HQ books sounds like a cute read!!
That sounds fun.
Sounds like they had tons of fun 🙂 So cute and an awesome printer!!
So cute!
My daughter loves playing restaurant!
What a great idea!
quite interesting, thanks for sharing this
Oh that’s a really great idea, to add a new dimension to playing restaurant!
Restaurant play is my DD2’s fav game! The addition of a menu would make it so much more fun!
Super great ideas for keeping little ones entertained, my grand daughter would have fun
My kids would enjoy doing something like that.
wonderful ideas and I know my grand children would have such fun with this!
I would become one cool aunt this this gadget. Love the imaginative ideas in Creative IQ.
How wonderful is that!! What a wonderful way for children to excerise their minds!
this is great! My niece and I always play shopping together or restaurant. Those are her fave games
That is really great. My daughter loves to play games like shopping,
This would be great for my niece. She’s always want to play restaurant.
This made me smile…I loved playing restaurant as a child. I wish we had computers back then! I also worked for a period of time as a waitress..good times!
VERY great and interactive program. In today’s society where we are so tech advanced – it’s important to teach kids these skills and keep it educational!
Playing restaurant/store was always a fun activity for myself as a child – and seems to be popular with all kids 🙂
My niece would love this one. She could learn so much with this app and have fun at the same time
My daughter would love this one! Great learning app!
Now That is my kind of Printer! The Fact it was reliable for your business and fun-times for your daughter. What a great App.
Restaurant play is so much fun. I really liked how it’s helping teach reading skills too. Every little bit helps 🙂
Great Printer!
Great idea and fits our kid’s life perfectly in addition to the printing set.
me and my daughter would have a blast with this
Great educational App my son would truly enjoy it.
A great use would also be to print t- shirt transfers and iron on wood for cool and easy art projects with the kids
My daughter would love this one! Great learning app!
Neat app!
Perfect for printing the many projects my teenage daughter has
wow awesome learning techniques
I also think the restaurant activity is a great opportunity to squeeze in (surreptitiously, of course) some nutrition education by making a menu of healthy food items. And with using colourful graphics and printing words in a simple but interesting font, it’s sure to grab them and keep them entertained for much longer.