Caroline Brooke, Author, Illustrator and Photographer: Mother Goose Time

Photo Copyright
Caroline Brooke

This month was full of fun and adventures in homeschooling with the girls. Thank God for Mother Goose Time. They sent the perfect box for this month because it helped us all get back to making healthy choices after all the unhealthy choices we made during the holidays.

February, Food and Fitness Theme

The girls learned about how to create a healthy plate, exercise and how important it is to get a good sleep each night. Below, you can see our monthly topic web for February and what the topic was for each day. We also made check-up appointments with our doctors and got lots of exercise. We had a lot of fun exercising together this month.

Fun Food Craft and Play Activities

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Learning about Food Groups with Mother Goose Time.

The girls learned about making healthy choices. You can see our beautiful Mother Goose Time poster below. Our daughters are lactose intolerant, so we talked about ways we can get protein. We also talked about how important it is to eat healthy everyday. It was so cute at dinner tonight, because I just realized our youngest daughter was talking about eating all different types of food everyday with her dad during dinner tonight.

Here are two of the girls' favorite food study crafts:

Making pizza, which is technically not all that healthy if you make it like people normally do.
Making and playing lemonade stand.

Mother Goose Time Pizza Craft

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Mom, take the picture when I say, "I love pizza".
Pizza Craft by 4-year-old

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
No craft is complete unless she gets her little Blue Bear character in there somewhere. He's a character she just made up and has dreams about... Very detailed dreams about space travel and flying in airplanes. It's so interesting.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Pizza Craft by 8-year-old

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Mother Goose Time sent us these adorable boxes for their pizza crafts.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
These pizzas have been used several times, as they like to use them to play with
their stuffed animals and American Girl dolls.

Lemonade Stand Craft

This adorable Mother Goose Time Craft came with the pop out, foldable lemonade stand, money, open/closed signs and cups. We made our own sign with an arrow, to attract customers.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Making a lemonade sign with an arrow.

Rudolph did pretty well. Take a look at the line in the pictures below.

She completely set up the sale and lined up the animals. As each animal paid, she stuffed each cup with either a Kleenex or pieces of fabric, so she could pretend they had a full cup.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Using a piece of a fleece blanket for pretend rainbow juice.

"Mom, it's a party!"

She throws her balloon in the air.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
(You can see a Christmas house/candy display. We got that at CVS for free after Christmas last year.
We are going to make it into a doll house.)

Fun Fitness

Of course, jumping on the trampoline is a lot more fun in your pajamas, right? On day 12, our topic was "jump", so they jumped on the trampoline in their pajamas for exercise that day, and pretty much every other day after breakfast. Of course, that's a great stress release for all the 3rd grade work our oldest daughter has to do everyday.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

We also went for lots of walks/run and bike rides.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

We even exercised at church.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Taking more bike rides with dad was fun.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
On the left there is a green/blue planet, then a rainbow (with no rain) in the center, and the sun is on the right.
Random observation. :)

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Of course, Krav Maga is a great way to get exercise.

We even took a field trip to the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach. That was actually great exercise with all the walking around, too. That also gave the girls lots of exercise for their minds. Because we went with our homeschool group, it was only $27 for all three of us, including the 4D turtle movie.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
About to relax and watch a 4D movie about turtles at the Aquarium of the Pacific.

Rest

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke
Meeting Meredith Andrews at Saddleback Church.

On the way home from the aquarium trip, the girls listened to their CD from Meredith Andrews and fell asleep. "Rest" was our topic to study on day twenty.

So, the girls made little forts out of blankets in the backyard with their puppies.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Yes, and the caterpillars got rest, too.

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Sweet dreams, February...

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Okay, they are asleep now...

Their little hearts dreaming of rainbows, unicorns and butterflies...

Photo Copyright Caroline Brooke

Mommy Reflection

Here (below) are the prefect Mother Goose Time books and crafts to go along with the aquarium field trip. It just reminds me that even though we try to plan, we need to be open to flexibility... Like this really nice field trip with our homeschool group that went better with our ocean theme month, but really who cares. Flexibility with positivity is important.

This month also reminded me to take better care of myself. Because food and fitness was our February topic, it made me focus on changes for the better for myself, too. I realized that I have to add mommy care to our homeschool routine, which is a new realization for me. Fortunately, our homeschool group mommies had shared lots of ideas about mommy-self-care.