Forgetful Momma

Secular Homeschooling in Canada

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Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

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This single serve coconut mug cake was easy to make, and the best part for me is that it isn’t overly sweet. Just because we want a sweet treat doesn’t mean we want to overload on sugar. This dessert for one is easy to make, ready in less than five minutes, and not altogether unhealthy.

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

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The other night I wanted a little snack. I wanted something kinda sweet but not too sweet, but you know, a treat. I searched Pinterest. Actually, I started searching Pinterest for something different a couple of nights ago because again, I wanted a not too sweet treat. This is what I got when I made this coconut mug cake.

What you need:

  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 cup milk – I use almond milk
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil
Single Serve Recipes

How to Make Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

In a small bowl, combine all ingredients and stir.

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake - ingredients in bowl

Pour batter into mug and microwave for 1:30-2 minutes or until cooked through.

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

Top with whipped cream and toasted shredded coconut

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake
Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 2 minutes
Cook Time: 2 minutes
Total Time: 4 minutes

Single Serve Coconut Mug Cake is the perfect treat for an evening snack.

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
  • 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
  • 2 tablespoons unsweetened shredded coconut
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 cup milk - I use almond milk
  • 2 tablespoons coconut oil

Instructions

  1. n a small bowl, combine all ingredients and stir.
  2. Pour batter into mug and microwave for 1:30-2 minutes or until cooked through.
  3. Top with whipped cream and toasted shredded coconut. Optional.
© Ashley Mullen
Category: Dessert

Quick and Easy Single Serve Desserts

I love quick single serving dessert recipes. They are perfect for an end-of-day celebration because you made it all the way through the day with your children. Everyone is alive and well and you deserve a reward for that my friend.

Desserts for one have three great things going for them:

  • one serving so I can’t overindulge
  • easy to make
  • hardy any dirty dishes – I always cook my dessert in the same dish I mix it in

More recipes you might want to check out:

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Snickerdoodle Cookie

Peanut Butter Cookie Dough for One

Single Serve Chocolate Pudding in A Mug

Animal Activities for Kids

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Kids love animals, whether that is being around them, learning about them, or having fun with some of these animal activities. These are easy for parents and fun for kids.

animal activities for kids

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Animal Activities for Kids

You can combine one, or more of these fun activities with your homeschool lessons to add some hands-on learning, as a way to keep hands busy as they listen to a read-aloud, or when older siblings are working on their own work.

Animal Activities for Kids

These are fun activities to include with any animal-related lesson plans you are covering in your homeschool or school.

Shark Buoyancy - Animal Science Experiment

Let's learn more about how sharks float.

Arctic Animals - Science Experiment

Want to see if a layer of blubber can really help you stay warm in icy water? Try this experiment to see how arctic animals live in the cold.

Painted Rocks Sharks

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Have some toothy fun with these shark-painted rocks. Follow this simple step-by-step tutorial on how to paint rocks.

Adorable Felt Animal DIY Pencil Toppers

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Helping to make schoolwork a bit more fun, these cute felt animal DIY pencil toppers are a great back-to-school accessory!

How to Make Farm Animals for Kids Painted Rocks

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These fun and easy-to-make farm animals for kids painted rocks and activities is a creative way to keep your little one happy and busy. Farm animals for kids painted rock crafts can be the perfect indoor activity whether it's at home or school.

Woodland Animal Craft

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This animal papercraft is such a fun option! It's great for preschoolers to do with help or as an after-school activity that can be doubled up as some fun artwork to put on the walls.

- Mum's Creative Cupboard

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Fun crocodile swamp activity for little ones!

Shape Turkey Craft (template included)

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Help preschoolers learn shapes with this adorable shape turkey craft! As well as being a perfect Thanksgiving craft for toddlers and preschoolers this turkey craft would be fun to make as part of a farm theme or animal project.

Paper Plate Fish Craft for Kids: Make This Tropical Clown Fish!

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This paper plate fish craft is a really cute one to make with kids!

Farm Activities For Preschoolers with Free Farm Printable Pack

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Farm animal activities for toddlers and preschoolers at home - fine motor skills, sensory play and counting too!

Footprint Penguin: penguin chick footprint art, an easy winter craft

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Winter is the perfect season to create Footprint Penguin art with acrylic paint, canvas, and a cozy sock-covered foot from a child you love.

Fun Animal Bingo Games for Kids (FREE Printable)

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Get ready to explore the forest or the jungle with a bingo game… I have 3 different printable bingo games for kids who love to play games!

Old MacDonald Farm Animal Story Stones

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Make farm animal story stones to accompany the popular nursery rhyme 'Old MacDonald Had a Farm'.

Shadow Science Physics Activity with Animal Silhouette Puppets (FREE Printable!)

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Kids love their shadows, love to chase shadows, and love to make shadows do silly things! There are also some fun things to learn about shadows for science and STEM!

Jungle Animals Activities and Adventures

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Check out these fun jungle animal activities for preschoolers! Jungles can be so much fun!

LEGO Animal Challenges For Kids

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These LEGO® animal challenge cards are a great way to get kids fired up over STEM. Follow the prompts to complete the build using the LEGO® you already have. 

Geometric Animal Art

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A fun geometric animal art project for kids.

Cardboard Woolly Sheep Craft

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Recreate the farm with this fun wolly sheep craft. Made from a recycled box and decorated with food coloring this is a great low-cost craft that kids are sure to love.

Farm Sensory Bin For Toddlers - AppleGreen Cottage

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Farm sensory bin for toddlers. To the delight of our kid, spring is the time when tractors appear as if from nowhere and fill the landscape, plowing the fields all around us.

Cardboard Tube Fish Art

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This cardboard tube fish art is fun for kids of all ages. Decorate with paints or fill with nature or craft resources. There is a free printable available making this a simple to set up and affordable craft project.

Paper Bag Zebra Craft Preschool Kids Will Love

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Paper Bag Zebra Craft Preschool Kids Will Love Today I am sharing a fantastic paper bag zebra craft preschool kids will love to make.

Feed the Cat Early Learning Game with Free Printable

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Feed the cat with this early learning activity. Change it up to include counting or fine motor skills.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Animal Science Curriculum for Homeschool

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Creative Writing Journal – All Subjects

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Do your kids struggle with creative writing? My kids would look at me I was trying to torture them. Then again if I was given a blank page and told to write story I would probably be drawing a blank too on what to write. Then I gave them this creative writing journal. Giving kids a page with an image that they are familiar with can be like opening the creative dam.

Creative Writing Journal

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Getting your little writers excited about writing has never been easier! Our creative writing story starters and monthly writing papers have everything you need to get them writing and asking for more.

Creative Writing Journal – All Subjects

What do you get with this Creative Writing Prompts for Grades K-2 resource?

  • 52 writing prompts
  • seasonal prompts
  • fun prompts
  • food prompts

They are in no particular order, so you can print them out for your learners when they fit your plans.

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I like seeing how far they come from the beginning of the year to the end of the year in their writing skill: in penmanship, in their ability to get their thoughts on paper, grammar, and more.

Creative Writing Journal – All Subjects

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How to Use

I print these on regular paper, nothing special. I hole bunch and either use a 3-hole binder or a duo tang folder to keep them all together.

Writing time at the end of our lessons has been a nice way to unwind. I do not correct these journal pages. I want to the write their story freely, and to not worry about grammar or spelling, but just the act of getting their words on paper.

I do help with spelling if they ask, or point them to our spelling dictionary.

Creative Writing Journal - All Subjects

It can be fun to use colored paper sometimes to add a pop of color to our writing journals, or white paper making the pages easier to write on, to color the pictures after writing their story.

Similar posts you may be interested in:

Donut Creative Writing with Art

Creative Writing Prompts for Young Writers

Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum

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Finding a secular homeschool curriculum that meets with every single requirement that you are looking for can seem impossible. And when you do find what seems like the best curriculum ever, it is way over budget. Why don’t you create your own homeschool curriculum? You are a homeschool mom, you have the skills to do this.

Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum

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We have been using our own curriculum for years. I did not follow a curriculum when we first started homeschooling. We have not used a homeschool curriculum for the past couple years again. I like the freedom of creating our own curriculum.

Why Create Your Own Homeschool Curriculum

The first reason I can give for wanting to create your own is the cost to buying curriculum for one child can often be more than your budget will allow for. Buying curriculum for multiple children can be impossible, even when you are buying used.

The second reason for creating your own curriculum is that it can be impossible to find the secular curriculum you are looking for. Add in looking for curriculum outside of the Unit States and the task put before you is going to be impossible.

Creative Writing Journal – All Subjects

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Eclectic Homeschoolers

We are eclectic homeschoolers, I put our homeschool curriculum together myself pulling from different areas, different resources, even from other curriculum. Picking and choosing resources makes your homeschooling experience individualized to your child’s needs and your family dynamics. It allows you to use the parts of other methods that really appeal to you and make it your own learning experience.

Create Your own homeschool curriculum

Creating A Curriculum

Step 1: Decide on what you want your child to learn.

List what you want to cover for social studies, science, history, language arts, and whatever other subjects you may want to cover.

For example: World History Geography, and you want to cover North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Africa, and Antarctica.

Step 2: Breaking everything done.

For example: you are going to homeschool for 36 weeks in the year. That would be roughly six weeks per continental study if you wanted to give each the same amount of time.

Homeschool Binder Pages Organization

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Step 3: Create Sub-topics.

What are you going to cover for each. I would want to cover general information, which countries are where, typical geography information. I would also want to cover specifics about each such as foods, and traditions and customs.

Step 4: Create a timeline.

The curriculum timeline is the order in which topics will be taught.  Sometimes there is a natural progression, but other times you have a lot of flexibility. Creating a timeline before even teaching the first lesson will keep the momentum going because you always know what is next.

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Step 5: Finding resources.

I love the library. I use our library for 95% of our homeschool resources. There is some unknown when you choose to use the library instead of buying your books, as you may have to wait for the books and not get them when you had planned. It requires flexibility.

YouTube is a great resource, as are the streaming services available now. Curiosity Stream is a documentary based service perfect for homeschoolers that we use often, along with Disney Plus, Netflix, and Prime.

Don’t forget to look locally as well. Museums, science centers and such are amazing field trips opportunities.

Step 6: Decide on learning methods.

We often read or watch something and then have discussion about it. when my kids were younger than might then draw a picture or create something Lego to demonstrate what they had learned. As your children get older you can change what you do.

Having a homeschool binder to keep track of everything is going to become your best organizational tool. A central place to keep track of everything.

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How to Set up Google Classroom for Homeschool

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How to Start Homeschooling Mid-Year

Bottle Rockets! Outside Fun

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One of the best things about living back on the East coast is the nice weather. It is January and right now my kids are running around outside in the dark with lights strapped to their foreheads having a blast. It’s not that cold out in January so we’re doing messy, outside fun things here still, like bottle rockets. This was a fun addition to our homeschool.

Bottle Rockets Science Experiment for kids - bottle on bench

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This experiment was fun, and the excitement of not knowing how long it was going to take before the reaction happens and the bottle takes off into the sky. And boy do they take off!

What you need:

Launch Pad Construction

Are you kids as crazy about Lego as mine? These are great for building a launch pad. You are going to need some to set your bottle rocket on, and letting your kids create a launch pad out of Lego is just another why to include learning… I love Lego, my kids are crazy about it.

Bottle Rockets - Lego launch pad
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How to Make a Bottle Rocket

This is easier than I expected. And a lot of fun.

I wish I had removed the label from our pop bottle so we could see the reaction better. Which my kids thought of while they continued to make their own bottle rockets.

Take a piece of paper towel, add some baking soda, and roll it up. Make sure that it will fit into the bottle opening, even if you have to push it in a bit.

Bottle Rockets - baking soda on paper towel

Try to keep it out of the vinegar.

Bottle Rockets - pushing paper towel into bottle

Push a cork in, only in a little or it won’t be able to pop out. This happened with our first attempt.

Bottle Rockets - wine cork in bottle

Flip the bottle over into/onto the launch pad.

Stand back and watch, it can take a minute, so while it seems like a long time, stay back so you don’t get hurt.

Bottle Rockets

Bottle Rocket

Yield: 1
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Active Time: 2 minutes
Total Time: 7 minutes
Difficulty: Easy
Estimated Cost: $5

Simple vinegar and baking soda can turn into a fun time with these bottle rockets.

Materials

  • vinegar
  • baking soda

Tools

  • 2L pop bottles
  • corks
  • launch pad
  • paper towel
  • toilet paper - optional

Instructions

  1. Take a piece of paper towel, add some baking soda, and roll it up. Make sure that it will fit into the bottle opening, even if you have to push it in a bit.
  2. Try to keep it out of the vinegar.
  3. Push a cork in, only in a little or it won't be able to pop out.
  4. Flip the bottle over into/onto the launch pad.
  5. Stand back and watch, it can take a minute, so while it seems like a long time, stay back so you don't get hurt.

Notes

Launch Pad:

Are you kids as crazy about Lego as mine? These are great for building a launch pad. You are going to need some to set your bottle rocket on, and letting your kids create a launch pad out of Lego is just another why to include learning... I love Lego, my kids are crazy about it.

© Ashley Mullen
Project Type: Science Experiment / Category: Experiments

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Self Inflating Balloon Experiment

Pop and Mentos Eruption

Bouncy Egg Experiment – Eggs in Vinegar