You know spring is coming when the Flour Babies appear. Playing a significant role in every Ramapo junior’s Health education, the purpose of the Flour Baby project is to, as Coach Stephen says, “have students gain the realization of the time, energy, and responsibility it takes to have a child.” According to junior Lindsey Morrison, “the Flour Baby was a good and easy way to get the juniors to understand a tiny fraction of the responsibility it takes to take care of a child. Carrying around a 5 lb bag of flour is not the same as taking care of an infant, but it sparks the idea of how exhausting caring for a child must be.” For a one week period, juniors are tasked with creating a birth certificate, carrying their babies wherever they go, filling out babysitting forms and leaving them with a trusted friend or adult when they are unable watch over them, waking up in the middle of the night to “feed” them, and ensuring that they make it through the week safely. In describing the in-class assignments of the week, Morrison explains that “[the juniors] did activities that helped widen [their] view of taking care of a child,” highlighting an “activity regarding how much it would cost to take care of a real child for a year by shopping for items” and “multipl[ying] the cost of how much of the item we would need for the whole year.”

Yet, despite the project’s intention of instilling an understanding of the difficulties of parenthood in students, it also provides a sense of good-natured fun in the form of the library’s crowded daycare pen, teachers cradling a student’s Flour Baby, runaway baby heads rolling through the halls, and juniors engaging in an unspoken competition to have the best dressed baby. According to Coach Stephen, “Every Junior has the project at the same time so it’s fun to see them with their babies all dressed up walking the halls of Ramapo. Some students do an amazing job and make the 5 pound sack of flour look life-like.” Whether it’s the funniest, the most realistic, or the cutest, there’s nothing better than seeing the juniors roaming the school with their creations.

Vote here for your favorite Ramapo flour baby! Attached is a Google Drive with all corresponding photos with their numbers.

Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1xjKZKGzALeMknPxK9oo8PW1eMJkyRTD1?usp=sharing

Voting Form: https://forms.gle/dzcWBQky1rDGPDch9