Week 4 of 52 · The Lone Star State

Texas: a week in Austin

Tacos for breakfast, turtles by the trail and a whole bridge full of bats. Let’s start in Austin, follow the music and head into the Hill Country—with plenty of time to stop and look.

Explore Texas Get the kids’ kit

Austin skyline across Lady Bird Lake, photographed on our family trip — Austin, the water & the Hill Country
7 days · 27 family photographs · a 10-page kids’ kit with a word search

Print, learn & wonder

The Texas State Kit

Just 10 pages—less to print, more time to explore. Map Texas, meet its wildlife, learn a little history, make tacos and solve a state word hunt. Each lesson has choices for K–2, grades 3–5 and grades 6–8, all from home.

Find your way

Place Austin on a Texas map and meet the Lone Star flag.

Small lessons, big questions

Learn about history, living cultures, springs and bats.

Make something

Build bean-and-cheese tacos and draw a Texas nature scene.

Texas word hunt

Eight state words to find, with answers for grown-ups.

Week 4 · Texas

The weekly guide

1845

year of statehood

Texas joined the United States on December 29 as the 28th state.

254

counties

More counties than any other U.S. state. Austin is the state capital.

2nd

largest state

Only Alaska is larger by area. This week stays in Central Texas, not the whole state!

tribes based in Texas

Three federally recognized tribal nations are based here; many other Native nations have Texas ties.

Flag clue: One white star, a blue vertical stripe and white and red horizontal stripes. Texas adopted this design in 1839, before statehood.

Eight things to tell the kids

Texas gets its name from a Caddo word often translated as “friends.” Native languages are part of the map!

Austin’s Congress Avenue Bridge shelters Mexican free-tailed bats. They eat insects and usually live here from spring into fall.

Lady Bird Lake is a reservoir on the Colorado River. This Texas river is different from the Colorado River that carved the Grand Canyon.

The bluebonnet is the state flower. Look with your eyes and let wildflowers keep growing for bees and butterflies.

A northern mockingbird can copy other birds’ songs. It is the Texas state bird.

An aquifer is water stored underground in rock. The Edwards Aquifer feeds Barton Springs.

Texas has dinosaur tracks! Tracks are trace fossils: clues left by an animal, rather than part of its body.

Juneteenth began with news of freedom in Galveston on June 19, 1865. Families still celebrate it today.

Sources & planning links

History and state facts use the sources below. Hours, prices, bloom seasons, tours and water access can change; confirm directly before travel.