Living Root Garden School • Creatures Great & Small • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the chewed kale — something is eating holes in the leaves, and something else is eating the eater. Sort the heroes from the troublemakers.
Don't squish first, ID first: take a photo, look close, compare it to pictures, and ask a grown-up. One bug on a healthy plant is not an emergency — holes, curling, wilting, and sticky residue are the real evidence.
Learn the great mix-up: a ladybug larva looks like a tiny black-and-orange alligator, about as long as a grain of rice, with zero spots — and it eats even more aphids than the grown-up ladybug. A hoverfly larva looks like a tiny blind slug and eats hundreds of aphids too. Gross-looking does not mean bad.
Spot the troublemakers by their damage: aphids crowd on new growth and leaf undersides and leave sticky honeydew; a hornworm strips tomato leaves overnight — look for dark green pellets called frass on the leaves below, because the criminal is directly above; squash bugs leave shiny bronze barrel-shaped eggs under leaves.
Rule out the fakes and mind the no-touch one: a hoverfly looks like a bee but can't sting, and a fir tussock moth caterpillar looks soft and touchable but its hairs sting with an itchy rash — admire the fuzz, keep your fingers to yourself.
Ask: Which bug will you find the most of on one plant — a hero or a troublemaker? Write your guess before you look.
Try: Scout one plant like a scientist: check the leaf undersides, tally every hero and every troublemaker you find, and make an ID card for five bugs — name, looks, ally or troublemaker, and the evidence.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Write a pest-management plan for one crop you grow: name the pest, the warning signs to watch for, and your response ladder — what you try first, and what you try next.
Tell: Fill in the log below — date, what you saw, what surprised you — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “The ___ was a hero because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw your favorite ally card as a wanted poster — name, looks, and the evidence that proves it is a friend.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Show someone a ladybug larva — or a photo of one — and tell them why you never squish it, in your own words.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can tell a garden hero from a troublemaker before I touch anything.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Five ally cards
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can tell a garden hero from a troublemaker before I touch anything.
Living Root Garden School • livingrootgarden.com/homeschool/ • Free — print as many copies as you like. File this sheet with your portfolio log. Sprouts do the Read, the Case, and Build It; Growers try the Ask, Try, Tell stretch when ready; Teens do the whole packet — including teaching it back.