Living Root Garden School • Creatures Great & Small • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the garden hose that moved — something legless is doing pest control in the yard. Learn it on the page, not in the field.
Rule #1, the biggest rule in this guide: NEVER touch any snake, ever — not the pretty ones, not the tiny ones, not the ones that say “harmless.” If you see a snake, stop, step back, get a grown-up, and admire it from far away. Sorting snakes is for learning at home, NOT a field test.
Meet the helpers on the page: a southern black racer is long, skinny, matte black, and almost always in a hurry by day; a corn snake is gentle orange with reddish blotches and a black-and-white checkerboard belly; a garter snake wears long yellowish stripes and hangs out near water hunting frogs and minnows.
Beware the lookalike: the harmless Florida watersnake lives around ponds eating fish and frogs, and constantly gets blamed for being a cottonmouth — a venomous snake it is NOT. Lots of harmless snakes get blamed for a lookalike, which is exactly why kids never sort snakes in person.
Know the six, but don't trust the rhyme: Florida has exactly six venomous snakes, and the rhyme about red bands touching yellow or black can't be trusted as a safety tool — people misremember it, and some snakes don't follow the pattern. The only rule that works every time is to back away from every snake.
Ask: Which of the seven helper snakes is most likely to visit a garden like yours, and why? Write your guess before you look at the clues.
Try: Walk the yard with a grown-up and spot three good snake hiding places — a log pile, a pond edge, garden rows — and mark them on a map. Look only: never reach into log piles or brush, and never touch a snake.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Research venom vs. constriction — how rat snakes squeeze and how venom works as a hunting tool — and why the coral-snake rhyme can't be trusted, plus real bite first aid: call 911 or Poison Control at 1-800-222-1222, keep the person calm and still.
Tell: Fill in the log below — date, what you saw, what surprised you — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “A snake would like this spot because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw your safety poster as a comic strip: freeze, back away, get a grown-up.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Teach someone the three safety moves — freeze, back away, get a grown-up — and why you never trust the rhyme, in your own words.
🏅 I can…
☐ I know what to do when I see a snake — freeze, back away, get a grown-up.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Safety poster
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I know what to do when I see a snake — freeze, back away, get a grown-up.
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.