Upcoming Houston Area Festivals

Here are some upcoming Houston area festivals that we are hoping to attend! (photo from Sam Houston Festival in 2006.)

Houston Children's Festival. Dates: April 4th & 5th. We've been to this festival many times since Alexandra was a toddler, but I've never blogged about it! If we get to go this year, I'll post some photos!

Houston International Festival. The focus country this year is Ireland . Dates: April 18th & 19th/25th & 26th. Through their website you can buy tickets half price through the end of March! We've attended this festival only once, in 2006, when the focus country was Jamaica. IFest offers EXTENSIVE Teacher's Guides online. Unfortunately, it looks like you can only access this years and the past 3 years guides, but those include Ireland (183 pages!), Africa, China, and Jamaica. These guides would be helpful for anyone studying those countries. The guides include things like environment, geography, culture and history.

Houston Japan Festival. Dates: April 25th & 26th. We've never been to this festival, but we hope to try it out this year!

Sam Houston Folk Festival . Dates: May 1st - 3rd. We've also been to this only once, in 2006. There are lots of wonderful demonstrations at this festival! I highly recommend it! It's about an hour north of Houston.

Dragon Boat Festival. Date: May 2nd. We've also never been to this one but we learned about dragon boat racing while studying Canada. Then, we found out that Houston has a dragon boat race!!! So, we're really looking forward to this event. Since dragon boat racing originated in Asia, there is also a "celebration of Asian culture" that takes place on the day of the race with dancing, music, and taiko drumming.

Sam Houston Folk Festival

We went to the Sam Houston Folk Festival on Saturday. There was so much to see and do! I took lots of pictures, so I think I'll just post some and write briefly about each one.



This picture is of a lady making lace! I've never seen it done before, and I was amazed at how time-consuming it looked. I kind of agreed with her (after her demo) that it was more time consuming than difficult. I don't think I'd have the patience for it. :-)


This man was demonstrating how he makes Windsor chairs. We saw lots of craftsmen, but this was something I hadn't seen before.


They also had a Scottish area at the event, because Sam Houston was part Scottish. This is one of the men we met and talked to briefly. Most of them were wearing their tartans.



This is one of Alexandra making a candle. She did several crafts. Her favorites were making a candle and making a necklace the way they used to make ropes.


This picture was taken while watching some African dancing.

We talked to this man for awhile. He was the one that told us they were getting to have a battle re-enactment.

This man was very nice. He showed us how they loaded their rifles and then he & 3 other men fired them (with blanks, of course).

The battle re-enactment. This is the first time I've seen one of these in person! Actually, not quite as exciting as I thought it'd be. But, it was very loud. They even shot the cannon.
Book: We read Sam Houston: American Hero by Crawford - good book