ANSWER:
“Over the river and through the woods“

State Bird: California Seagull—The seagulls saved early pioneer crops from hungry crickets during their first year in Utah. After the pioneers prayed for help, the seagulls came and ate the crickets. The pioneers were able to keep their food crops safe.

State Cooking Pot: The Dutch Oven—Early pioneers cooked with big, heavy, black kettles. Many people in Utah use these at special events or when they go camping. Dutch ovens are used by more people in the Utah than in any other state.

State Fish: The Bonneville Cutthroat Trout—These fish have a “cut”, or rather an orange patch of color on their throat. The Cutthroat was adopted as the state fish in 1997. It is a fish that has been in Utah since earliest recorded history and was a source of food for Utah Indians and Pioneers.

State Flower: The Sego Lily—This beautiful flower was selected by the State legislature in 1911. During hard times for the pioneers, they would dig up these flowers and eat the root bulbs.

State Folk Dance: The Square Dance—Mormon Pioneers loved to dance and this was on of the most popular types of dances that they would perform together. Dancing was an important form of entertainment for early settlers.

State Fossil: The Allosaurus—More allosaurus specimens have been found in Utah than any other dinosaur. The Allosaurus was believed to be a meat-eater that grew to be about 16 feet in height and weighed probably 4 tons (8,000 pounds!)

State Fruit: The Cherry—Utah is the second largest producer of tart cherries in all of the United States. They are the fifth largest grower for sweet cherries.

State Gem: The Topaz—This gem is nearly as hard as diamonds. They can be found in a number of places in Utah.

State Grass: Indian Ricegrass—Yes, Utah also has a state grass! Indian Ricegrass was used by Native Americans in Utah many years ago when food was scarce. They would ground it up and make a special flour out of it so that they could make bread.

State Insect: The Honey Bee—The honey bee is an important insect in the culture and history of early Mormon Pioneers. The original proposed name of the state was to be “Deseret” which is a Mormon Scriptural word for Honey Bee.

State Mineral: Copper—Utah has the world’s largest open pit mine called the Bingham Canyon Mine. It is a half a mile deep and 2.5 miles wide. 12 million tons of copper have been mined from this location since 1906.

State Rock: Coal—Coal has been an important source of energy since the industrial revolution. Coal has been found in 17 of Utah’s 29 counties.

State Tree: The Blue Spruce—this tree is commonly found in the large mountain ranges of the northern half of Utah.

State Vegetable: The Spanish Sweet Onion— Utah farms sell about 100 million pounds of onions every single year!

The chief executive of the state is the Governor. The Governor can serve a four year term. He/she can be reelected any number of times. The Governor has a Lieutenant Governor that is also elected. The Lt. Governor takes the place of the Governor in case the Governor leaves the job.

The legislative branch consists of two law-making bodies—the Senate and the House of Representatives. There are 29 Senators in the State—one for each county. The House of Representatives has 75 voting members.

The Judicial branch has two major court systems. 1) is the Utah Court of Appeals. 2) is the Utah Supreme Court.

The Capitol of Utah is Salt Lake City.

This new travel passport contains a variety of activities to keep your kids busy and involved during your family vacation. With activities such as logic puzzles, Riddles, Number Blocks, Anagrams, and Battleship, your kids are bound to have a great time together with the family in the car.

My Daughter having fun with one of her recent Passports

The activity passport books are free to use. Simply open up the PDF file and print out the book. These books were designed to be printed on both sides of paper in a printer. When these are printed in a two sided formation, they can then be cut in the middle and either stapled or bound spirally at a copy center.

Once you have your books printed out, don’t forget to modify the set of coupons in the back to help the kids have a variety of fun, redeemable “treats” along the way.

Feel free to forward this link on to your friends and leave your comments on the books down below. We want to hear of your ideas, or of suggestions for improvement.

Download your Winter 2010 Travel Passport and let the fun begin!

DOWNLOAD: The Winter Travel Passport

Across
3. When a wind storm hits and carries the snow with it so that it is all over in the air. It makes it hard to see outside.
6. Not hot
8. These things are worn on the hand.
9. You will often build one of these when you get a lot of sticky snow in a day
11. Solid water
13. Grandma’s often knit these so that you can wear them to keep you warm
14. You wear this over your shirt to keep you ward while outside
Down
1. As long as you keep wood in it and keep it lit it will bring you warmth
2. The first month of the year
4. The month that Christmas comes in
5. You wear these on your feet when you go out into the snow
7. You throw these while playing in the winter cold with your friends
10. The color of snow
12. The month with Valentine’s day in it
13. A long piece of fabric or other cloth that you wrap loosely around your neck to keep it warm

Use the clues below to try to figure out what suitcase belongs to each child.

Here are your clues:

• Chloe didn’t choose Yellow because it could get dirty easily.
• Jace & Avary wanted a red suitcase as their second choice, but they both ended up getting their first choice color.
• Elyvia & Chloe both wanted Green but neither one was able to get it.
• Neither Jace nor Elyvia selected a Yellow suitcase.
• Chloe had a hard time deciding between Green and Blue, but finally selected one of them.

Here are the Answers (Don’t peek!):

Chloe: Green; Jace: Blue; Avary: Yellow; Elyvia: Red.

Use the clues below to try to figure out what child brought each item.

Here are your clues:

• Aylee can’t draw on her item
• Aylee, John & Alayna were complaining because they had nothing to eat during the trip
• Alayna had some crayons in her pocket for her item
• John’s item is not made of cloth

To generate a quote box puzzle, just type in a short quote in the box below. We will do the rest. You can print out your puzzle and give them to the kids on your next family trip!

Please note — smaller, one to two sentence quotes work the best for young children.

To solve Quote Boxes, drop the letters from each vertical column — not necessarily in the order in which they appear — into the empty squares below them to spell a quotation that reads from left to right, line by line. Black squares indicate ends of words (spaces).