Care for the Baby

Activity Overview

To care for babies, we need to exhibit tenderness, compassion, and responsibility. In this activity, which encourages empathy and promotes trustworthiness, children will learn how to care for a baby by participating in dramatic play with a doll. Students will experience what it is like to care for someone who can’t take care of themselves and address the needs and wants of others.

What You Need

• Baby doll or stuffed animal

• Bowl, spoons, play food

Steps

1. Prepare the dramatic play by gathering materials to feed the baby doll with the student.

2. Begin the dramatic play scenario by setting the scene: The baby’s parents entrusted them into your care while they are gone, and you are responsible for them. Everything was going well until the baby started crying and now they won’t stop. What do you do? Emphasize that in this activity the student is responsible for taking care of the baby. Ask the student guiding questions, and work to find a solution to stop the baby from crying.

3. Take turns feeding the baby, playing with the baby, giving them a bottle, wiping their mouth, and changing their clothes if they’re dirty. The student is practicing how to care for someone, recognizing the baby’s needs and addressing how to calm a baby when it is upset.

4. Let the student try a few different strategies, until they have successfully made the baby stop crying. Scaffold your student's play, building on their choices and decisions about the narrative they are engaged in until a natural ending to the play occurs.

Guiding Questions

• What do we need to do when the baby cries? What could it mean?

• How else can we care for the baby?

• What do we do if she gets food on their clothes?

• The baby has food all over his mouth. What do we do?

Extensions

• Sometimes singing helps a crying baby - listen to Put the Baby in the Bed with your student for some ideas on what we can do to get the baby to sleep.

• Put the child in charge of the dramatic play: let them describe when the baby is upset and what the adult will need to do to calm them.