Week 3 of 52 · Louisiana

The heartbeat of Louisiana is its music, and jazz is the ultimate musical superpower! 🎷

Jazz didn't just appear out of thin air. It grew from African drum rhythms, Caribbean beats, church spirituals, the blues and marching-band tunes. All these sounds poured into one city, New Orleans, and created a brand-new kind of music! Today, you can still hear those beats dancing through the streets.

🧭 Explore Louisiana 🖨️ Get the state kit

St. Louis Cathedral seen across Jackson Square in New Orleans — This week's field guide
New Orleans, the river and the music it made
7 days · 25 family photographs · 10 printable pages + word search

Print, learn & wonder

The Louisiana State Kit 🎒

We’ve shortened the kit from 20 pages to 10—less to print, more time to play. Explore Louisiana with a map, history, music, wildlife, beignets, coloring and a new word search, with choices for K–2, grades 3–5 and grades 6–8.

Map the waterways

Find Louisiana cities and follow the Mississippi toward the Gulf.

Learn before doing

Short history, music and wildlife lessons with activities for three grade bands.

Create at home

Make beignets with a grown-up, clap a rhythm and color the Pelican State.

Louisiana word hunt

Find eight state words, then check the answer key together.

Week 3 · Louisiana

The weekly guide 🧭

Start with facts, then move through the quiz, seven-day route, kitchen, culture and practical planning.

1812

year of statehood

Louisiana entered the Union as the 18th state on April 30.

parishes

Louisiana uses parishes instead of counties.

federally recognized tribes

Chitimacha, Coushatta, Jena Band of Choctaw Indians and Tunica-Biloxi are sovereign nations.

3,400+

years of Poverty Point

Native American builders made giant earth mounds here more than 3,000 years ago, long before ancient Rome.

Flag clue: A brown pelican cares for three chicks above the motto “Union, Justice and Confidence.”

Eight things to spring on the kids

🦩 Louisiana's flag shows a mother pelican caring for her three chicks. It's a symbol of looking after one another.

🗺️ Louisiana is the only state divided into parishes instead of counties.

🐊 Alligators dig "gator holes" that stay wet when it's dry, so fish, turtles and birds use them too.

🌳 Bald cypress trees grow knobby bumps called knees that poke out of the water. Scientists are still figuring out exactly why!

🎺 Jazz was born in New Orleans around 1900, created mostly by Black musicians. Louis Armstrong grew up here!

🌶️ TABASCO sauce has been made on Avery Island since 1868.

🥣 The word gumbo comes from a West African word for okra, a clue to where the dish comes from.

🏺 At Poverty Point, Native Americans moved tons of dirt by hand, basket by basket, with no wheels or horses.