September
- Visit Zoo
- Visit Science Center, with planetarium show (Jaja & Rico) and Discovery Room (Gretel)
- Visit friend who runs a shelter for homeless pregnant and parenting women; deliver supplies
- Catch frogs and toads around aunt’s pond
- Listen to and watch aunt play her new grand piano
- Go to City Museum with cousins
- Visit friend’s farm; pick tomatoes, feed pigs, and give each other wagon rides
- Swim at fancy pool/water park
- Play basketball and wiffle ball with uncles
- Attend Major League baseball game, and learn how to track hits and keep score
- Explore city garden park designed by family member
- Adoption agency annual picnic, including face painting and jumping castle
- Apple Festival: apple picking, Taiko drumming, rope swing, hay slide
- Throw Atlatl at annual competition/event
- Talk to actors participating in historic Native American ‘encampment’
- Take passenger ferry back and forth across lake
- Walk through a corn maze
- Hike in the rain
- Soccer team
- Conclude seasonal participation in our family’s CSA (Community Supported Agriculture)
October
- Trip to Florida
- Beach at night, phosphorus in ocean (Rico & Gretel)
- See Jelly fish (Rico)
- Catch fish with a net
- Swim in the ocean
- See dolphins
- Build sand castles
- Protect sand castle from rising tide
- Talk about tides and palm tress
- Swim in pool; Gretel learns how to swim
- In pool do handstands, jump into deep water, hold breath, retrieve items off bottom, play Marco Polo
- Skim-boarding and body-surfing (Jaja & Rico)
- Find sharks teeth and shells
- Chase and catch lizards (Rico)
- Play tennis, frisbee, football, and catch
- Design jack-o-lanterns
- Clean out and carve pumpkins
- Participate in Art Walk, with homeschool art show
- 200-500 piece puzzles
- Math games
- Read out loud
- Soccer ends & Hockey begins
- Rico’s birthday, and ice skating birthday party
- Watch live Quidditch
- Friend’s Halloween party, including singing, band, and crafts
- Design own Halloween costumes
- Talk about letting adults have private conversations, and define eaves-dropping
- Hike with grandparents
- See first snow of the seasons
- Help cook and bake
- Start weekly house-cleaning routine
- Make own bed and pick up own room daily
- Jump on trampoline
- Daily silent reading
- Knitting (Jaja)
- Help Mama take care of our friend’s baby
- Talk about foster care, older children waiting for families, potential feelings/emotions after placement, privilege, and gratitude
November
- Finger puppet show
- Play hair salon
- Hike to pond with friends
- Talk about following directions and not leaving group (Rico)
- Watch college hockey games
- Visit Science Center
- Knit with grandma, including knitting towers and needles
- Hikes/walks with grandparents
- Go to Harry Potter birthday party, with crafts and science experiments
- Build with dry pasta
- Draw portraits of siblings
- Build and make words with scrap wood
- Write math facts on lots of scraps of paper (Jaja)
- Write in journal
- Go to the DMV with mom to register our new van
- Play checkers (Jaja & Rico)
- Play ‘Uno’
- Play ‘Chutes & Ladders’
- Watch Daddy chop wood
- Help stack fire wood
- Our dog becomes ill; talk about old age, illness, and death
- Go orienteering
- Swimming with cousins
- Scavenger hunt with cousins
- Play Restaurant
- Play chess (Rico)
- Ice skating with cousins
- Sculpture with dining table place settings and accessories (Jaja)
- Koi pond
- Tree season drawings (Jaja)
December
- Cut down and decorate Winter Solstice tree
- Carry in wood for the woodstove
- Sweep Kitchen Floor
- Set table and wipe table
- Take out compost
- Listen to Daddy read Harry Potter Books 1-3
- Watch Harry Potter movie #1, and talk about books made into movies
- Play ‘Aggarvation’
- Sleepover party (Jaja)
- Spelling and sounding out words with ‘Bananagrams’ game
- Make flower with a cardboard stem, butterfly bracelet, and crowns (Gretel)
- Cut vegetables for dinner
- Design, build, and paint a wooden robot fro friend’s birthday (Rico)
- Design and address birthday party invitations (Jaja)
- Visit local gingerbread house display, and vote for favorite
- Build with toothpicks and gumdrops
- Fly a friend’s small place (Jaja)
- Paint a ceramic mug (Rico)
- Paint a wooden jewelry box (Jaja)
- Sled and play in the snow in the backyard
- Hockey practice and games
- Figure skating (Jaja & Gretel)
- Downhill Skiing
- Cross-country skiing
- Work on job charts
- Journal Writing
- Language Arts & Math workbook pages
- Computer game time
- DIDJs
- Visit with grandparents and friends
