Road Trip USA: Texas

Texas (The Lone Star State) was adopted as the 28th state on December 29, 1845. It was named “The Lone Star State” symbolizing the independent republic of Texas, and as a reminder of the state’s struggle for independence from Mexico. It is so large, that Congress gave it permission to divide itself into five “new states of convenient size”. Early Texans did not split up the state, which is now second in size only to Alaska.

Here are some of the things we learned about this week:

• Located Texas on our wall map
• Read our National Geographic Atlas and located Austin, TX using the map coordinates.
• Worked on our 50 States and Capitals song
• Learned about the state and it’s flag
• State Bird: The Mocking Bird
• State Flower: Texas Bluebonnet
• Stetson Hat Company
• State Vehicle: Chuck Wagon
• Large Mammal: The Texas Longhorn
• Small Mammal: The Nine-banded Armadillo
• Texas Oil (Black Gold)
• US Presidents: Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th US President 1953-1961), Lyndon B. Johnson (36th US President 1963-1969)
• Food: Texas Sheet Cake (Recipe included in the curriculum)

 

Here is our white board for the week, we use this to review all of the state facts and symbols each day.

 

Turbo added Texas to our United States Bulletin. After that we reviewed all of the states we’ve learned so far on our travels.

 

We took turns locating Austin, Texas in our National Geographic Atlas.

 

They all completed their state worksheets as we read through all of the Texas state facts in our curriculum:

 

Dwight D. Eisenhower (34th US President 1953-1961), Lyndon B. Johnson (36th US President 1963-1969) were both born in Texas!

 

The Chuck Wagon was named the official state vehicle in 2005. Chuck Wagons carried food and cooking equipment on the prairies of the U.S. and Canada as part of wagon trains. They were used for feeding nomadic workers like cowboys and loggers. The “Cookie” was in charge of the Chuck Wagon and would often act as cook, barber, dentist, and banker.

 

We made a fun chuck wagon craft to commemorate our visit to Texas!

 

After learning about the animals symbols for Texas , we classified and added the animals to our USA animal wall!

 

Then Strawberry Shortcake had the honor of adding the state to our wall map.

 

January 10, 1901 marked the discovery of oil when the Lucas No. 1 well blew at Spindletop (a salt dome oil field) near Beaumont TX. It spewed oil more than 100 feet into the air until it was capped nine days later! From then on the Texas’ economy was wrenched from its rural, agricultural roots and launched into the petroleum and industrial age. The event created such a frenzy of oil exploration, that it became known as the Texas Oil Boom. Soon afterwards, the United States became the leading oil producer in the world.

 

We completed our study by adding the Texas state flag to our travel journal!

 

Since this was a review week, we played a bunch of fun review games to help remember all of the states we’ve learned so far. One of their favorites is the United States puzzle by region. (This is included in the curriculum as well.)

 

We take turns matching up the capitals to the state flashcards, and working the region puzzles.

 

Here are the regions we’ve covered so far! Just the west to go now!

 

We also added our mini-state books to our southwest notebook page in our Road Trip binders.

 

And we’re just about done reading If you Lived With The Hopi by Anne Kamma.

 

 

And that wraps up our Texas study! Everything you see here is included in the curriculum, If you’d like to come along with us on our Road Trip USA journey, click the image below to learn more!