This guide is designed to encourage people to keep animals of all kinds in the classroom and to use them in teaching language arts, mathematics, and social studies, as well as science and nature study. The booklet is divided into four sections. The first section contains an account of a year with desert animals in an ungraded classroom of six- to eight-year-olds. The second section contains a checklist of things you need to consider for animal care. The third and fourth sections describe methods that have been used successfully in caring for gerbils and two kinds of desert lizards. Some simple, inexpensive cages are described which can be used for lizards and gerbils as well as for other animals. A brief list of books about animals concludes this book. (Author/DS)