Potato Baby Project
- Google Drive™ folder
What educators are saying
Description
Explanation:
Talking about Child Development with your students? Give them a fun activity where they get to see a glimpse of the responsibilities of caring for an infant!
My students absolutely LOVE this project. When I first heard of this idea, I thought, "Really? I don't think they'll get excited about a potato." But after I tried it, let me tell you, I am FOR SURE doing this every semester. They are obsessed!
Why not egg or flour babies?
I chose not to do egg babies because I didn't want to hard boil 50 eggs! I have heard people complain about the smell this causes as well. I also definitely did not want to NOT hard boil the eggs and have middle schoolers running around breaking their eggs left and right... That's one way to get my co-workers mad at me, haha!
Flour babies I thought about because they are more realistic in weight, however, I knew it was going to be more expensive. I also didn't want to carry in 50 bags of flour!
So that got me to potato babies! I'm so glad I chose this!!!
In this purchase you will receive:
- Potato Baby Birth Certificate
- Potato Baby Tracker
- Potato Baby Reflection
Other things you will need:
- Potatoes (1 per student)
- Googley eyes
- Unique stamp to stamp the potatoes (so they can't replace it)
- Hot glue gun
- Glue sticks for glue gun
- Optional:
-Yarn for "hair"
-Fabric for "diaper"
What I do:
(You don't have to do it this way, but this is what I do!)
*Stamp each potato with a unique stamp before handing them out!*
1. Explain my rules and expectations (super important to do for my middle schoolers, lol!)
2. Walk through the potato tracker
- I email my whole staff with the potato tracker attached. I explain that if they see any student doing something that they shouldn't be (leaving the potato, throwing it, dropping it, etc.) to sign their potato tracker sheet. The more X's a student has on their potato tracker, the lower their grade.
3. Show students the birth certificate and how to fill it out
4. Pull up an electronic wheel to find out the gender. I use https://wheelofnames.com/ and put "boy" and "girl." I do this because, as we know, we don't get to pick the gender of our babies! I also have a talk with students and tell them that if they don't feel comfortable choosing a gender, they surely do not have to do so.
5. I have students do this one by one, each spinning the wheel. The class loves to do a big drumroll for each student while the wheel is spinning. Once they get their gender, I give them their potato, sign the birth certificate on the "delivered by" line and hand them their potato tracker.
6. Once they get to their seats, they will fill out the birth certificate and potato tracker and then start getting their items ready to "create" their baby.
I usually give them their babies on a Thursday and then examine their babies & tracker sheets on the following Monday. They are expected to bring it to each class, take it home and then bring it back to school.
I hope you love this project as much as we do!
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