Living Root Garden School • Creatures Great & Small • Name: ______________________
🔍 The Case
The case of the nibbled leaves — a plant's leaves are chewed, and something tiny is hiding underneath. What will it become?
Check the undersides of leaves on a host plant — the exact plant a caterpillar needs to eat. Monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed and only milkweed, and gulf fritillaries lay on passionvine, where spiky orange caterpillars munch the leaves.
A caterpillar's job is eat and grow — it eats so much it outgrows its own skin and sheds it, several times, like outgrowing shoes over and over. A monarch caterpillar eats only milkweed its whole caterpillar life, and the plant's bitter chemicals make it taste bad to predators.
Look for the chrysalis: when it is big enough, the caterpillar hangs itself up and forms a hard, jewel-like case. Monarch chrysalises are jade green with gold dots. Butterflies make chrysalises — moths make cocoons wrapped in silk, and that is how you tell which one you found.
Rule out the lookalikes: butterflies have thin antennae with clubs on the ends and fly by day, while moths usually have feathery antennae and fly by night. And never touch a fuzzy caterpillar — a puss caterpillar looks like a cute toupee and delivers a famously painful sting. Look, do not grab: butterfly wings are covered in tiny scales that rub off with handling.
Ask: Two host plants, one sunny morning — which plant will have eggs or caterpillars on its leaves? Write your guess before you look.
Try: Find a milkweed plant and a passionvine plant and check the undersides of their leaves carefully. Count any eggs or caterpillars you find, note which stage they are in, and leave them exactly where they are.
Stretch (Teens & Growers ready for more): Watch two flower types for fifteen minutes each and tally every butterfly visit. Landslide or tie — and does the winner match the plant where you found the caterpillars?
Tell: Fill in the log below — which plant you checked, what stage you found — then finish this sentence in words or a labeled drawing: “The ___ plant had ___ because ___.”
Date
What I saw
What surprised me
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
Date: ____/____/____
🛠️ Build It
Draw the host plant with its eggs or caterpillars circled — like a detective marking clues.
🗣️ Be the Teacher
Tell someone the four stages of a butterfly — egg, caterpillar, chrysalis, butterfly — in your own words, no reading off the packet.
🏅 I can…
☐ I can find a caterpillar's host plant.
Portfolio check
☐ Guide read
☐ Case solved
☐ Ask, Try, Tell done
☐ Build It filed: Host plant notes + sketches
☐ Taught someone
☐ Badge earned: I can find a caterpillar's host plant.
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.