Topic 33 — What living things need — blueprint (29 September 2026)
What I need from you: 3 decisions
Keep the order food, water, air, place — or open on air, the surprising need?
the four atoms have no order between them (each needs only Topic 32's sort). The architecture row says food, water, air, place, and L01 coins "need" on the budgie, the most concrete case. Olivia's Matter order (air first) would put the least visible need first; the surprising-members pattern is applied INSIDE each lesson instead (the plant that never eats; the aloe plant; the fish under water; the zoo penguin).
My recommendation: keep food, water, air, place — "need" is coined on a starving budgie, which every child can picture.
Is "a fish takes in air from the water" the right grade-3 sentence?
LIF3-005's example is the whale coming up to breathe. The real story is dissolved oxygen and gills; the topic says only "a little air is mixed into the water, and the fish takes it in" and points at the fish-tank pump as the everyday proof. No gills (Topic 35's word), no oxygen (grade 6-8's).
My recommendation: yes — it is the truth at the size a grade-3 student can hold, and the 6-8 register sharpens air into oxygen later.
Does the need / want line become a small atom, LIF3-P01, taught inside L01?
"need = want" and "a pet needs a bed and toys" are the common findings for this age. L01 spends three idea lines on it (Teodor's game), three items and one bank type test it, and a bank item must name an atom — PP-8 (a tomato plant with a ribbon) is tagged LIF3-P01. The register has no atom for it; the proposal is in records/ATOM_PROPOSALS_G3T33.md.
Topic 33 at a glance — 4 lessons
| Lesson | Opens on | Format | |
|---|---|---|---|
| L01 | Every living thing needs food | Teodor is going to his cousin's for a week. | video + article |
| L02 | Every living thing needs water | Sibyl has an aloe plant on her desk. | video + article |
| L03 | Every living thing needs air | Tycho watches the fish in the pond at the park. | video + article |
| L04 | Every living thing needs a place that suits it | Odessa is at the zoo. | video + article |
What this topic is, in five lines
Four short lessons, one per atom, each a fact true of every living thing: it needs food (L01), water (L02), air (L03) and a place that suits it (L04). Each lesson runs the same shape: a child's question about one surprising case (a tiny budgie; an aloe plant unwatered for a month; fish that never come up; king penguins kept cold at the zoo), then a run of examples in ONE frame with the surprising member FIRST (the plant that never eats but makes its own food; the aloe plant that keeps water in its thick leaves; the fish that takes in air from the water and the whale that comes up for it; the zoo's king penguin that still needs a cold place with a pool) and the everyday member last (the child), one non-living case at the boundary (a toy bird, a glass bottle, a tin can, a toy penguin — Topic 32's sort, re-used), the rule last, and a return to the opening scene.
L01 coins the topic's one word, "need" (something a living thing must have to stay alive), and draws the need / want line once. L04 gives the sorting sentence for "suits": a place suits a living thing when the living thing can stay alive there.
The summary closes on one table: four needs across, living things down, a tick in every cell.
Applied without asking (rulings you have already given): hard PP100 items are typed (two of ten exemplars, both text entry); every attached question stands alone with its own drawing; no option bundles a verdict with a reason; every claim is bare yes / no; every stem a positive question; colour in figures; the intro ends on a ready line and a poll and names no lesson; scene changes spoken with "let's", never an imperative at the viewer; three questions on the summary; the type sheet before the bank (≤ 10 types, ≤ 2 alone-types per atom, coverage alone and in pairs, a design-move inventory, fresh exemplars); a headache character never in an item, a claim-maker once per topic; "living thing" taken from Topic 32 and never re-coined; a plant makes its own food and does not eat the soil (Topic 26); "light", not "energy from the Sun" (Topic 29); no figurative verbs; US spelling; scripts ≤ 150 words ending "Okay, now your turn".
Every living thing needs food L01
Teodor is going to his cousin's for a week.
His budgie stays at home in its cage.
'Can you feed it every day?' he asks Edda.
Edda looks at the tiny bird.
'Does something that small really need food every day?' she asks.
Does a budgie really need food?
Without food, the budgie gets weak, and then it dies.
Something a living thing must have to stay alive is called a need.
A plant never eats, but it needs food too: it makes its own food in its leaves.
An ant, a deer and Teodor need food.
Every living thing needs food to stay alive.
Video: the budgie card's chips NO FOOD → WEAK → DIES, then the tick; the light ray on the geranium's leaves and the cross on EATS THE SOIL; a tick landing on each run card — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-003 — State that every living thing needs food to stay alive; say that a plant makes its own food
Part 1q — quiz, 11 items
Every living thing needs water L02
Sibyl has an aloe plant on her desk.
She has not watered it for a whole month.
The aloe plant looks fine.
'An aloe plant doesn't need water,' Sibyl says.
Is Sibyl right?
Can a living thing stay alive with no water at all?
An aloe plant takes in water when rain falls and keeps it in its thick leaves, so it needs a drink only now and then.
A camel walks for days between drinks, then drinks a huge amount at once.
A tomato plant with no water droops; with wet soil it stands up again.
A glass bottle in the desert needs no water: it is not a living thing.
Every living thing needs water to stay alive.
Video: rain on the desert aloe plant and the stem glowing blue; the tomato plant drooping, then standing up after Sibyl waters the soil — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-004 — State that every living thing needs water to stay alive
Part 1q — quiz, 11 items
Every living thing needs air L03
Tycho watches the fish in the pond at the park.
The fish stay under the water all day.
They never come up.
Tycho holds his breath.
After a few seconds he has to breathe.
'Fish never come up for air,' he says.
'So fish don't need air.'
Do fish need air?
A little air is mixed into the water, and the fish takes in air from the water.
A whale cannot take in air from the water, so it comes up to the top of the sea for air.
A plant needs air too: its leaves take in air.
Tycho and a dog need air.
Every living thing needs air to stay alive.
Video: pale dots of air in the pond water; the tank's bubbles rising; the whale's blow — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-005 — State that every living thing needs air to stay alive; say that a fish takes in air from the water
Part 1q — quiz, 11 items
Every living thing needs a place that suits it L04
Odessa is at the zoo.
The king penguins live in a cold room with a pool and ice.
Outside, the goats live on a grassy hill in the sun.
'Why don't the king penguins live on the hill with the goats?' Odessa asks.
Why does the zoo keep the king penguins cold and wet?
A king penguin needs a cold place with water to swim in; on a hot, dry hill it cannot stay alive for long.
A place suits a living thing when the living thing can stay alive there.
A pet fish needs a place with water; an aloe plant needs a dry, sunny place; a frog needs a damp place near water.
A dog's toys are not a need: it stays alive without them.
Every living thing needs a place that suits it.
Video: the place cards' tick and cross appearing on each panel; the dog's toys fading to grey — video and article.
Part 1 — LIF3-006 — State that every living thing needs a place whose conditions suit it (the case is the KING penguin: zoos keep them in chilled rooms; other penguins live in warm places)
Part 1q — quiz, 12 items
Language decisions
- "Need" is coined once, in L01: something a living thing must have to stay alive. "Want" is not coined; the line is drawn by the sentence "a need is something a living thing cannot stay alive without".
- "Stay alive" is the one test phrase in every lesson, item and figure question ("Needs food to stay alive?", "Can it stay alive here?").
- A plant "makes its own food", "needs sunlight to make its food", "does not eat the soil". How it makes food is not said (Grade 5's).
- A fish "takes in air from the water"; "a little air is mixed into the water". No gills, no oxygen.
- "Droop" for a wilting plant; "rot" is Topic 26's word and is used for the aloe plant in a swamp; "suits" arrives with its sorting sentence in L04.
- Nothing "lifts", "leaks" or "runs out of steam"; the plant "has run out of water" is kept as the plain phrase for a used-up supply.
- Openers vary: "Teodor is going to his cousin's", "Sibyl has an aloe plant on her desk", "Tycho watches the fish", "Odessa is at the zoo"; contractions in scripts and headaches.
PP100 type sheet (TYPE_SHEET_ONLY; James's 28 Sep night ruling: hard items are typed)
Ten types, ten exemplars, at most two alone-types per atom (type 8 names the provisional LIF3-P01); eight four-option MCQs (easy and medium) and two typed hard items (both text entry: the missing need from a list; the need worked out from what an animal does). Coverage table in records/TYPES_G3T33.md.
Figures
51 figures: 17 SVG (seven need cards, four run cards, four place cards, four rule cards, the needs table — every verdict mark under the question it answers), 29 photos (real living things and the non-living boundary cases), 5 cartoons (the four headache scenes and Emil's dog). Every figure has an IMAGE_BRIEFS entry and an IMAGE_KINDS entry; people and hands are never drawn as glyphs; an item's placeholder alt text never names the answer.
Deliberately not taught
Why plants need light and how they make food (LIF3-023, LIF4-010, Grade 5); oxygen and gills (Topic 35; grade 6-8); roots take in water (Topic 38, LIF3-021); what happens to living things when a place changes (Topic 42, LIF3-063); how an aloe plant stores water beyond "keeps it in its thick leaves"; hibernation; seeds as living things; warmth as a separate need (folded into "a place that suits it", as the register does).
This grade’s course architecture — open only if you want the whole map
Skill: course-build → atomise (architecture, step 6b gate) → write-like-james @ acc4fb6
Grade 3 Science — course architecture v3 (James's rulings of 25 September, plus Olivia Mullins's sequencing)
Read this in five minutes. Grade 3 Science is ONE course with a fixed order; nobody picks strands. It arranges the 183 Grade 3 atoms into four strands and forty-two small topics, each with its own mixed practice, summary video and PP100. Nothing below writes a lesson sentence. The atoms stay where they are: the Science Knowledge Graph's 3-5 registers.
Rulings recorded (James, 25 September 2026)
- Strand order: Physics, Matter, Earth & Space, Life. James: "I don't think it matters hugely … Happy to go with 1 Physics 2 Matter 3 Earth and space 4 Life. That works well." Strands may be intermingled later if a reason appears; none does yet.
- Grade 3 is one course. "We're not going to allow students to pick any strand … we need to structure Grade 3 as we think Grade 3 should be structured best." v1's line about students choosing strands was wrong and is gone.
- Topic 1 is the pilot. "That topic 1, I think, works as a good pilot."
- Small topics. "3 atoms is fine for testing. PP100s on quite granular stuff is absolutely fine … A 4-atom topic and a 5-atom topic is great. 9 is too many, really … if something's got 9 atoms, we should be considering splitting it." So sound, soil, fossils and natural resources each stand alone, and every v1 topic of nine or more was split (Card 2). Topics 1 and 2 keep 8 and 7 lessons because James approved Topic 1 as it stands and Topic 2 is one chain about speed; both are flagged as split candidates once their PP100 data arrives.
- Forces opens with Earth's pull and magnets, before the word "force" (Olivia Mullins call, 25 September; James: "I think I'll follow that"). Topics 3 and 4 teach the two non-touching pulls with no talk of forces; Topic 5 coins "force" on both of them and on the hand push together, so the hand push never becomes the whole category. Her two classroom misconceptions (Earth pulls only on your feet; "balanced" is a kind of force) are in the register and the lessons.
- States of matter start with air (Olivia): air takes up space → gases spread → liquids → solids → the sort.
Applied from the earlier rulings: four strands; Motion before Forces before Energy; Scientific Reasoning atoms taught inside the topics that use them; one intro video per strand and per topic, each teaching nothing; one atom, one lesson, both video and article; a summary video before every PP100; PP100 banks of at least fifty items tagged by depth of reasoning; the Forces topics reuse the golden pack; the language rules (Earth's pull, carriers not forms, no "leak" or "lift").
Card 1 — The strands and their order
The call: Physics → Matter → Earth & Space → Life, each with its own intro video and its own end-of-strand test.
| Strand | Topics | Atoms | Why it sits here |
|---|---|---|---|
| Physics | 1-15 | 64 | Motion first: what you can see, before the invisible cause. Energy last: "faster means more energy" needs speed. |
| Matter | 16-21 | 22 (+7 Scientific Reasoning) | Uses the measuring tools and feeds Earth's water cycle in Grade 4. |
| Earth & Space | 22-31 | 41 (+4 Scientific Reasoning) | Weather uses tables and graphs; "the Sun powers Earth" must precede food chains. |
| Life | 32-42 | 43 | Ends the year; leans on Space (the Sun), Forces (Earth's pull) and Matter (properties). |
Scientific Reasoning's 13 atoms are spread through Topics 1, 16, 17, 22, 23 and 25 (Card 4). Total 183 lessons.
Card 2 — The topics
The call: forty-two topics, most of three to six lessons; a mixed mastery practice set, a summary video and a PP100 at the end of every one.
| # | Topic (student-facing title) | Atoms (in teaching order) | Lessons | The big idea it serves |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Physics | ||||
| 1 | Where is it? Did it move? | MOT3-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 006, 007, 008 (+ SR3-020, 021 inside L07/L08) | 8 | You say where something is with a landmark; moving means its position changed; motions can repeat |
| 2 | Fast and slow | MOT3-020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025, 026 | 7 | Faster means farther in the same time, or the same distance in less time |
| 3 | Earth pulls things down | FOR3-021, 029, 030, 028, 022 (+ a closing lesson naming gravity) | 6 | Earth pulls every object, all the time, straight down, on every part of it, without touching; a strong enough pull can beat it; the pull's name is gravity (JM 28 Sep 2026; no word "force" yet) |
| 4 | Magnets | FOR3-023, 024, 025 | 3 | A magnet pulls steel without touching; two magnets pull or push; use a magnet to solve a problem (no word "force" yet) |
| 5 | What a force is | FOR3-012, 001, 008, 006 | 4 | Earth's pull, a magnet's pull and your push are all forces; push or pull; on one object; in one direction |
| 6 | Forces that touch, and forces that don't | FOR3-020, 027, 026 | 3 | Some forces act without touching: Earth, magnets, a rubbed balloon; most pushes touch |
| 7 | Pushes and pulls change things | FOR3-002, 003, 004, 005, 007 | 5 | A push or pull starts, stops, turns or squashes; you can test it |
| 8 | Strong or weak: drawing a force | FOR3-009, 010, 011 | 3 | A stronger push makes a bigger change; an arrow shows a force's direction and strength |
| 9 | Balanced forces | FOR3-040, 041, 042, 043, 045 | 5 | Several forces act at once; balanced forces leave motion as it is, still or steady |
| 10 | Unbalanced forces | FOR3-044, 046, 047 | 3 | Unbalanced forces speed up, slow down or turn |
| 11 | Energy: what has it, how it travels | ENE3-001, 002, 003, 004, 005, 034 | 6 | Energy makes things happen; light, sound and electricity carry it; faster means more |
| 12 | Sound | ENE3-030, 031, 032 | 3 | Sound comes from vibration and travels to your ear |
| 13 | Light: sources, straight lines, shadows | ENE3-010, 011, 012, 017 | 4 | Light comes from a source, travels straight, makes shadows, must reach the eye |
| 14 | Light bounces, bends or soaks in | ENE3-013, 014, 015, 016 | 4 | Reflection, refraction, absorption, sorted |
| 15 | Light and heat | ENE3-020, 021, 033 | 3 | Light-givers give heat; rubbing makes heat; light carries energy |
| Matter | ||||
| 16 | Describe it, sort it | SR3-001, 002, MAT3-001, 002, 003 | 5 | Observe with more than your eyes; describe an object by its properties; sort and order |
| 17 | Measuring tools | SR3-003, 004, 005, 006, 007 | 5 | Thermometer, scale, measuring jug; pick the right one; two groups can disagree |
| 18 | Which has more? | MAT3-004, 062, 005, 006 | 4 | More mass, more space, warmer, decided by a measurement; MAT3-062 "everything takes up space" (JM ruling on Olivia's comment, 28 Sep 2026) sits before the space comparison |
| 19 | Sinks, floats, sticks to a magnet: choosing materials | MAT3-007, 008, 060, 061 | 4 | Test a property, then pick the material for the job |
| 20 | Solids, liquids and gases | MAT3-063, 064, 065, 022, 023, 021, 020, 024 | 8 | Air first (Olivia's order): air is something you can feel; it is made of tiny pieces too small to see; so is every kind of matter; air takes up space; gases spread out to fill their space; liquids take their container's shape; solids keep theirs; then the sort with the awkward cases. MAT3-063, 064, 065 were added on 28 Sep 2026 (JM's rulings on Olivia's comments) before MAT3-022 in the chain; eight lessons is over JM's 3–6 size, so the Topic 20 build record (decision 1) proposes a split after MAT3-022 into "Air is something" (4) and "Solids, liquids and gases" (4), renumbering Matter to 16–22, Earth & Space 23–32, Life 33–43 — nothing after Topic 19 is authored, so the renumbering costs nothing now |
| 21 | Heating and cooling | MAT3-040, 041, 042, 043, 044, 045, 046 | 7 | Heating and cooling change the state but it is the same water (split candidate: melting/freezing vs evaporating/condensing) |
| Earth & Space | ||||
| 22 | Measuring the weather | EAR3-017, 018, 019, SR3-010, EAR3-020, SR3-011 | 6 | Three instruments, a weather diary, reading it back |
| 23 | Weather over a season, and far away | SR3-012, EAR3-022, 023, 021, 024 | 5 | A season's records make a chart; the chart predicts; other places differ |
| 24 | Volcanoes, earthquakes, landslides | EAR3-007, 010, 008, 011, 009, 012 | 6 | What each one is, then how it changes the land fast |
| 25 | Dangerous weather | EAR3-013, 014, SR3-022 | 3 | Weather can do damage; a defence holds it back; pick the sensible cause |
| 26 | Soil | EAR3-001, 002, 003, 004 | 4 | Soil is broken rock plus dead things |
| 27 | Fossils | EAR3-029, 030, 031, 032, 033 | 5 | A few dead things last as fossils and tell of the past |
| 28 | Using and conserving natural resources | EAR3-040, 041, 042, 043 | 4 | Everything you own started as a natural resource; some run short |
| 29 | The Sun | SPA3-001, 007, 002 | 3 | A huge glowing ball of gas; a star; the source of Earth's energy |
| 30 | The stars | SPA3-003, 004, 005, 006 | 4 | Stars differ; they look like dots because they are far; telescopes show more |
| 31 | The solar system | SPA3-010, 011, 012, 013, 014 | 5 | Earth orbits the Sun with seven other planets; the Moon orbits Earth |
| Life | ||||
| 32 | Alive or not | LIF3-001, 007, 008, 009, 002 | 5 | Living things grow, feed, move and make more; sort living from non-living |
| 33 | What living things need | LIF3-003, 004, 005, 006 | 4 | Food, water, air and a place that suits them |
| 34 | Backbone or no backbone | LIF3-010, 011, 070 | 3 | Grouping by shared features; vertebrates, invertebrates, arthropods |
| 35 | The five vertebrate groups | LIF3-015, 016, 017, 018, 019, 012 | 6 | Mammal, bird, reptile, amphibian, fish, then the sort |
| 36 | Eggs, body parts and senses | LIF3-013, 020, 027 | 3 | Egg-layers or live birth; body parts do survival jobs; animals sense, then respond |
| 37 | How plants make new plants | LIF3-071, 072, 014, 024 | 4 | Seeds, spores, the sort, the flower's job |
| 38 | Plant parts and their jobs | LIF3-021, 022, 023 | 3 | Roots, stem, leaves |
| 39 | Plants respond | LIF3-025, 026, 028 | 3 | Stems grow to the light, roots grow down; plants respond by growing, animals by moving |
| 40 | Life cycles and family likeness | LIF3-030, 031, 040, 041, 042 | 5 | Every life runs in a cycle; offspring take after their parents but differ |
| 41 | Food chains | LIF3-050, 051, 052 | 3 | Every food chain starts with the Sun; remove a link and the rest changes |
| 42 | Living together and coping with change | LIF3-060, 061, 062, 063 | 4 | Groups, places and seasons decide who survives |
Totals: 183 lessons, 42 practice sets, 42 PP100s (banks of at least 50 items each), 4 strand tests (after Topics 15, 21, 31, 42), 1 end-of-grade test.
Why this grouping
- Every prerequisite edge points backwards in this order. Checked atom by atom in the assembled files; no forward reference.
- Animal topics (33-35) and plant topics (36-38) are separate, as James asked; the plant-versus-animal response contrast (LIF3-028) closes Topic 38 because it needs both sides taught.
- Topics 3 and 4 teach Earth's pull and magnets without the word force; Topic 5 coins it on all three kinds (Olivia's sequence). Topic 8 carries the two force-arrow atoms so Topics 9 and 10 can draw balanced and unbalanced forces.
- Topic 24 puts "what a volcano is" straight before "volcanoes change the land fast", and the same for earthquakes and landslides: what it is, then what it does.
What changes: the folder gets grade3/topicNN_build/ per topic; Topic 1's blueprint is approved; Topic 1 is built first.
Card 3 — Topic 1 is the pilot (approved)
The call: pilot "Where is it? Did it move?" end to end — 8 lessons, an attached question per video, a ten-item quiz after each, mixed practice, summary video, PP100 — before any other topic starts.
- It is the first thing a Grade 3 student meets, so the whole format ladder gets tried where the stakes are lowest.
- It holds a fact, four sorts, two routines and a prediction. Every check type the course needs appears once.
- Its quiz items are drawings of everyday scenes, so the figure pipeline for young grades gets tested too.
- Topics 3 to 10 follow, reusing the golden Forces pack where its lessons match (push or pull, force on one object, strength, direction, more than one force, the balanced and unbalanced lessons).
Card 4 — Scientific Reasoning is taught where it is used
The call: each of the 13 Scientific Reasoning atoms is a lesson inside the topic that first needs it, with its check there; no separate strand, no separate test.
| SR atom | Host topic | Why there |
|---|---|---|
| SR3-001 Observe with more than your eyes; SR3-002 Observation or idea about it? | 16 Describe it, sort it | describing an object's properties is observing |
| SR3-003 Read a thermometer; SR3-004 Measure mass with a scale; SR3-005 Measure the volume of a liquid; SR3-006 Pick the right measuring tool; SR3-007 Two groups, two different answers | 17 Measuring tools | the tools before "which has more?" uses them |
| SR3-010 Record results in a table; SR3-011 Find a value in a table | 22 Measuring the weather | the weather diary is the first table students fill and read back |
| SR3-012 Read a pictograph or bar graph | 23 Weather over a season | the graph before the graphing routine |
| SR3-020 Spot the pattern; SR3-021 Use the pattern to predict | 1 Where is it? Did it move? (inside L07 and L08) | the swing's repeat is the pattern |
| SR3-022 Choose the sensible cause | 25 Dangerous weather | first place students pick a cause for an event |
Card 5 — Tests and benchmarks
The call: a PP100 per topic; a static end-of-strand test per strand (some free response); one static end-of-grade test; all Grade 3 tests are our own banks, seeded from released grade-5 items filtered to Grade 3 atoms.
- No state tests science before grade 5 (D1 ruling). The released STAAR, Florida SSA and AZSCI grade-5 forms give the style and difficulty; items tagged to Grade 3 atoms seed the banks.
- The strand tests fall after Topics 15, 21, 31 and 42.
- The end-of-grade test samples all four strands with free-response items.
What happens next
Topic 1 is built as the first interactive version for James: the topic intro (video script and article), eight lessons each as a video script with animation guidance and an article with figures, one attached question per video, a ten-item quiz per lesson, mixed practice, the summary video script and the PP100 bank. Topic 3 follows, reusing the golden pack.