Last Friday, our Upper Elementary students visited the Bishop Jones Center, one of San Antonio’s hidden treasures. A peaceful oasis in the middle of Alamo Heights, the Bishop Jones Center is an excellent place to explore nature and take in God’s amazing work. They started the day with a walk along the meditative Cathedral Walk where students could enjoy the quiet stillness and let the beauty speak to them.

After the walk, they went back to the Chapel House to share their thoughts about the walk and tackle some tasks for the day, including their Level Up Village work. This semester they are focused on coding, a skill that students will use throughout their lives. After working, they enjoyed a long recess, playing games on the Great Lawn and having adventures in the rock basin.

High above the rock basin sits a tree house perfect for exploring new art techniques while basking in natural beauty. Students learned to create African beading and they practiced making illuminated manuscripts.

Illumination is the act of decorating a text with borders, illustrations, and marginalia and our students had a great time with it! In the Middle Ages, illuminated texts helped tell the stories for a population that could very rarely read. Although our students are great readers, they still had a blast with the illumination. They each chose a Bible verse that they liked and decorated it to reflect the meaning.