By: Lauren Mitchell

OwlFeed News Editor

A huge baby epidemic has hit our school, on Wednesday, September 12th, an outflow of students from the early childhood classroom were seen carrying their new babies, but do not be afraid, they were flour babies.

In the CTE classroom, where they are currently learning about diseases that babies can develop, the students are also learning how to take care of children by having a baby project. Dr. Kunst, the early childhood teacher, explained that this five-day project includes that they “Have to carry it around school, they have to take pictures, every four hours, they have to burp the baby, feed the baby, diaper the baby, there is actually a lot they have to do.”

The babies have a simple flour body with a styrofoam ball head, pantyhose is basically their skin that keeps everything together, while you can stuff their arms and legs with socks. The early childhood students chose eggs out of a basket to find the gender and disease of their baby, interestingly, some people got not only one baby, but two, twins!

Dr. Kunst gave the students a packet to fill out all about the baby like the disease, their birth certificate, and how much a baby costs. In the end, they will make a presentation with pictures of what them and their baby did together. “I really enjoy taking [my baby]  around places and taking photos being like look at my cute little baby and going on little adventures with my baby,” said Tori Engels, mother of Luna Lily Engels.

The babies are around ten pounds, to include the weight of the carseat and the diaper bags you usually have to carry around with a baby. “Holding Luna the whole time is horrible since she is heavy,” said Tori. However, some students have gotten creative with holding their babies safely, Tori got a baby carrier that is attached to her like a backwards backpack.

The fears of her students having these babies is of “Them playing roughly with the baby, throwing it at somebody and flour going everywhere.” Which is why babies must be put in the back of the classroom while class is in session.

In the end, students will be graded on their packets about the babies, the pictures of the baby around with the students, and of course, how the baby was treated. When the babies arrive back to Dr. Kunst, they shouldn’t have any dents in their heads, tears in their skin (pantyhose), or breaks in the flour bag.

“I think they are going to learn that a child is a lot more work than cute,” said Dr. Kunst. Despite the fact that Tori had said that the project is fairly easy with some difficulties, she was ready for the project to be over, teaching her “to not have kids in high school since it is way too hard.”

Even though these babies are made of flour, they were much more difficult than expected, and taught students valuable lessons about childhood diseases, how to take care of children, and just some aspects of why raising a child is difficult.