Virtual Babies - January 2011

As part of their child care course, 8 year 11 girls have been given the chance to use a virtual baby to see how they would cope with a baby in their life.  Deborah Needham (Childcare teacher) programmed the dolls to simulate a real baby who needs feeding, winding, nappy change and everything else a baby needs on a daily and nightly basis.  When the girls took the babies home for the weekend Mrs Needham set the babies to come on at 4pm on the Friday and go off at 5pm on the Sunday, so that they had to tend to the baby for over 48 hours as they would have to for a real baby.

Mrs Needham said that all the girls had taken this project very seriously and the reports back this information up.  If at some stage the girls forget or decide to not feed baby or leave them with a dirty nappy, or anything else that should be done, then this is recorded in the data which is retrieved when they are back in school and questions can be asked about why these have happened.

Year 10 students are also using these virtual babies now and hopefully they will also find them informative and make them think about having children in their teens.