Living Root Garden School • Creatures Great & Small • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the flashing fence post — something solar-powered is doing push-ups and waving a pink flag. Find the lizard.
Lizards are ectotherms — ecto means “outside” and therm means “heat.” They run on sunshine, so look for them flattened on a warm rock or fence in the morning, charging up like a battery in the sun.
Learn the crew by their clues: a green anole shifts between bright green and chocolate brown and flashes a pink throat fan called a dewlap; a five-lined skink has five cream stripes and a bright blue tail; a mole skink has a tail the color of a shiny new penny and sand-swims under leaf litter; a six-lined racerunner has six pale stripes and sprints across hot, sunny sand.
Watch for the great tail escape: if a bird grabs a skink by the tail, the tail can drop off and keep wiggling while the skink sprints away. The fancy name is caudal autotomy — caudal means “tail” and autotomy means “self-cutting.” A new tail grows back, but it costs the lizard stored fat and its best escape trick.
Rule out the grab: never, ever pull a lizard by the tail, and never grab one at all. Sit still near a log pile or fence on a sunny morning and let the lizards come to you — stillness is your superpower.
Ask: Which lizard will you spot first in your yard, and where will it be sitting? Write your guess before you go looking.
Try: Pick one anole's territory and track its color across several days — bright green or chocolate brown, and what the weather was doing each time. Watch only, never grab.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Log basking against temperature for a week — when your anole is out warming up and how warm it is — and graph it to see the pattern.
Tell: Fill in the log below — date, what you saw, what surprised you — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “My anole turned ___ because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw your anole mid-color-change, with the temperature and time of day written underneath.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Show someone an anole and explain how it warms up in the sun, and why you never pull a lizard's tail — in your own words.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can spot an anole and read its color like a mood ring.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Color log (+ graph for teens)
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can spot an anole and read its color like a mood ring.
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.