Pre-Tesco’s Training (ELC Electronic Cash Register)

Member Name: mreyre

Product:	ELC Electronic Cash Register
Date:	02/12/02 (1515 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: cash drawer pings out like Arkwright's, free play money and bar codes, drop it on the floor and it doesn't break

Disadvantages: doesn't "really" read bar codes, limited individual play potential

Before purchasing this toy for our daughter, we had a good look around at all the alternatives, as there are a great number of these around on the market at present, all offering similar features.

Perhaps the main reason for buying this particular one is the “Early Learning Centre” brand name, as one that you can rely on and trust. It also seems chunkier and more durable than comparable toys. In fact, my daughter has dropped it onto the floor of the kitchen many a time and it still works perfectly fine, with no hint of damage.

The unit itself is very brightly coloured in red and green (Tesco’s, take note!), with chunky buttons on it. They make a satisfactory (and not too annoying) bleeping noise when pressed, the number is then displayed on a large LCD screen. Basically, the register works like a large calculator, prices can be punched in and then added up. Older children would find this a useful support tool in early addition skills. However, younger children just get the pleasure of seeing the numbers appear on the screen.

As we all know, gone are the days of price stickers on items in supermarkets (whatever happened to all those price sticker guns?), so this till “reads” bar codes. Actually, it’s all a clever illusion, but to the untrained eye of a 3 year old, they think it’s great. When an item is passed over the black circle on the till, a “beep” sounds and a random price is generated on the LCD display. Younger children could pass the items over in any way, whether there is a bar code on them or not, but older children could be encouraged to look for the bar code. (Particularly if you have a career in Tesco’s in mind for them when they’re older!) A sheet of bar code stickers come in the box with the till, which are useful for making your own food boxes and sticking on for added realism.

At the end of the transaction, the child has 2 options – they can
press the button to open the cash drawer (some “pretend” money comes with it). The drawer then flings itself out in typical Arkwright style, with a resounding “ping!” Or, they can move the pretend swipe card through the slot in the till, just like in a real supermarket.

We find the till alone has limited play potential, and found that it needed supplementing with other play items. We bought a variety of realistic play food from Early Learning Centre (also available on-line!) – these range from fake lettuces to play cans, packets and the like. Asda also do a very realistic range of pretend food boxes, complete with Asda logos and pretend bar codes. Toys R Us also do a good range. We’ve also supplemented the stock with small boxes, like OXO cubes, spice boxes and free sample bottles.

Finally, we picked up a very realistic child-size shopping trolley from a car boot sale, as well as a plastic shopping basket, which adds to the play potential. Our daughter is now 4 and has had a good year’s use out of it so far, and never seems to tire of it. Her Nan works on the checkout at the Co-op and she loves pretending to be Nanny on the checkout. These role-play type toys also develop the child’s language skills (trust me, I’m a teacher!), as well as early emergent writing skills – you can encourage the child to “write” a pretend shopping list before they play.

Summary: