Rice Babies Celebrates 29 Years

First grade has been “birthing” rice babies for 29 years. The idea came to Fort Worth Country Day by way of teachers in New Orleans who presented about their success with the event at an Independent Schools Association of the Southwest (ISAS) conference, according to First-Grade Teacher Sheri Fuller. View this Rice Babies slideshow. 

A longstanding tradition in the Lower School, the Rice Babies project is a rite of passage for all Fort Worth Country Day first-graders. A typical fall FWCD event for the students, this year’s COVID-19 protocols put a hold on the project. With the recent lifting of some of the strictest social distancing and visitor protocols, students and parents created rice babies on Friday, May 21, marking the 29th consecutive year for this project! Students bring rice to school equal to their birth weight and create their very own sock baby filled with rice. Parents and teachers helped students fill tea-dyed socks with rice and added wiggly eyes, a pacifier and a belly button. The babies were then swaddled in baby blankets, many of which were the first-graders special “blankies” when they were babies themselves. The campus was filled with first-graders cradling their babies all day long. The lesson teaches first-graders about caring for others and introduces math concepts of weight, measurement, time and dates, and birth order in a family.