Living Root Garden School • Creatures Great & Small • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the midnight trash-can bandit — something with hands opened the lid, and something else buried a tree by accident. Follow the signs.
Mammals are animals with fur or hair that feed their babies milk — and your yard has four famous ones. Squirrels work days; opossums, raccoons, and armadillos mostly work nights, so your yard is two different neighborhoods depending on when you look.
Read the signs: a squirrel buries acorns all autumn and forgets where half of them are — every forgotten acorn is a possible oak tree, so squirrels plant trees by accident. Look for chewed nuts and half-buried acorns.
Know the night crew by their clues: an opossum is North America's only marsupial — it carries babies in a pouch like a kangaroo — and when scared it may flop over and play dead, tongue out, smelling awful. A raccoon wears a black mask and has hands that can open latches and jars. An armadillo wears a shell of bony plates, digs for grubs with strong claws, and jumps straight up when startled.
Rule out the petting: the rule for all wild mammals is look, don't touch — wild mammals can carry germs, and a cornered animal will defend itself. Never feed raccoons or opossums on purpose; fed animals lose their fear of people, which ends badly for the animal.
Ask: Which sign will you find first — tracks, chewed nuts, a burrow, or a trail? Write your guess before you walk.
Try: Walk the yard slowly, logging every sign of mammals: tracks, chewed nuts, burrows, trails. Note where each sign was and what time of day you found it.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Smooth a patch of bare dirt and check it each morning for a week. Build a visitor calendar of who walked through and when.
Tell: Fill in the log below — date, what you saw, what surprised you — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “The ___ visited because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw the mammal tracks you found, life-size, next to a sketch of the animal you think made them.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Tell someone how a squirrel plants trees by accident, and why you never feed a raccoon — in your own words.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can read mammal signs in the yard — tracks, nuts, and burrows.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Sign log + print sketches
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can read mammal signs in the yard — tracks, nuts, and burrows.
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.