Babies!

A few weeks ago I was presented with the idea to have our 8th grade students go through 2 days of classes about sexual education and parenting and then take care of electronic babies for a weekend by our school guidance counselor. I though this sounded like a good idea since our students are kind of sheltered in what they hear about this sort of thing through other sources and because the picture in my head of some of them taking care of babies was too entertaining to pass up. The first class went through the program Thursday and Friday of this week and yesterday were given their babies. If you have seen the movie "License to Wed" the babies we gave to the kids are slightly less technologically advanced versions of the babies they had to take care of in the movie. The babies can cry and move a little bit and they need to be fed, changed, burped, and rocked to stop them from crying. Unfortunately they don't actually produce waste like the babies in the movie. When the babies start crying, which can be at any hour of the day or night like a real baby, the students must try different things to determine what the cause of the problem is. They have to wear a sensor on a bracelet attached to their wrist so that they are the only ones who can care for the baby and the baby will only stop crying if it senses that the correct person is taking care of it. I can't wait to see their reactions when they come back to school on Monday after a weekend of taking care of their new kids!

The babies are all lined up and ready to go!

Last minute instructions on how to care for the babies.

You can actually hear the babies breathing!

Watching the kids picking up their babies and practicing burping them was priceless.

Three proud new daddies!