I’ve been compiling a list of places I’d like to go in conjunction with my earlier list of themes for each week.  So far, I’ve just put the list together.  There are certainly more things to do in the Washington area, especially if you have older children; however, I’m keeping in mind the relatively low tolerance and attention span of a 2 1/2 and a 5 year old (as well as their walking ability).  There is no way that I’ll be able to do it all, but why not start ambitious, right?

• Adventure Park USA
• Adventure Theater
• American Visionary Art Museum
• Assateague State Park
• Brookside Gardens
• Butler’s Orchard
• C&O canal
• Cabin John Park
• Calvert Cliffs State Park
• Croyden Creek Nature Center
• Cunningham Falls
• FDR memorial
• Fort Frederick State Park
• Germantown Water Park
• Glen Echo Park
• Glenview Mansion
• Gravely Point
• Greenbelt State Park
• Greenbrier State Park
• Harper’s Ferry
• Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden
• Homestead Farms
• Imagination Stage
• Kennedy Center (Millennium Stage)
• Lake Frank
• Lake Needwood
• Libraries (Mongtomery, DC, Fairfax)
• Locust Grove Nature Center
• Meadowside Nature Center
• Montgomery County Agricultural Fair
• National Building Museum
• National Children’s Museum
• National Museum of Natural History
• National Museum of Women in the Arts
• Old Post Office Pavillion
• Olney Farmer’s Market
• Patuxent National Wildlife Refuge Visitor’s Center
• Pea Island Nature Center
• Playwise Kids
• Rock Creek Park
• Rockville Farmers’ Market
• Rockville Town Square
• Sandy Point State Park
• Seneca Creek State Park
• Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
• Smithsonian National Zoo
• The Children’s Museum of Rose Hill Manor
• The National Capitol Trolley Museum
• The National Museum of American History
• The Puppet Company
• The Theater in the Woods
• The United States Botanic Gardens
• VisArts
• Washington Monument State Park
• Way Off Broadway Children’s Theater
• Western Maryland Scenic Railroad
• Wheaton Regional Park

This is a starting list.  If you  have fun things that you love to do in the area, please leave a comment, and I’ll add it to my list.  In the future, I’ll post a top ten things to do to make “adventures” as smooth as possible…

There is so much to do in the Washington area that it is overwhelming to try to list it all or to choose between one thing or another.  Each month, I’ve tried to make lists of calendars and events to help me choose the best activities for the day/week.  Here are a few of my “go-to” calendars to choose from, in no particular order:

• Washington Parent: http://www.washingtonparent.com/calendar.php
  The Washington Parent magazine is fairly ubiquitous.  Free of charge and often found in the entry area to malls, grocery stores, and community centers,  it offers several articles per month ranging from how to handle bullies to selecting a name for your child.
• The City of Rockville: http://www.rockvillemd.gov/events/index.htm and http://www.rockvillemd.gov/events/thisweek
  Rockville offers its residents a wide variety of events and community activities which are either free to the public or require a small fee.  For Mother’s Day, the city is throwing a tea party for children 2+ and their mommies.
• Washington Family Magazine: http://www.washingtonfamily.com/page/Places-to-Go_
  Much like Washington Parent, Washington Family magazine can be found free-of-charge in locations such as your supermarket, the community center, the coffee shop, or the post office.  According to the blogs on the site, this section is new and it lists many of the places where you can go adventuring in DC.  It isn’t a calendar, per say, and I’ll do a list of “places to go” in a future post, but it did include a link to one of my favorite places as a child: The Children’s Theater in the Woods at Wolf Trap…(This summer includes performances by Dinorock and Steve Songs… family favorites)
• Nick Parents Connect: http://gocitykids.parentsconnect.com/calendar/washington-dc-usa/2009/5/1
  Maintained by the TV network Nickelodeon and promotes free events to parents who live in cities, such as Washington DC. It displays only one day at a time, so you’ll need to play around with the date feature a bit, but it has a surprisingly large collection of free events in our area.
• Smithsonian Institute Calendar: http://www.si.edu/events/
  A comprehensive calendar of all the museums and centers that are part of the Smithsonian Institute, this calendar can be narrowed to focus only on events appropriate for children.  You can select the day, narrow your search, and find precisely when the zoo keepers feed, for example, the giant octopus.
• WETA: http://www.weta.org/local/calendar
  Events in DC according to its local public television channel.

There are more, but I’ll start with this for now.  I’ve tried listing calendars that draw mainly from “free” activities.  One of the key features I’ve learned about keeping busy is that it can get pricy if everything you do costs a little here and there.  One way to cut down the costs is really to focus on those places that have lots of payoff for very little money up-front.  This way if someone throws a killer tantrum or falls asleep or gets you kicked out of the facility, at least you aren’t out the extra cash!