Grade 4 — things that would ideally get your input, for when you have time

Grade 4 · 13 live videos (and 8 Grade 3 ones) whose last slide prints more than bullets

Which of the 21 sweep candidates should be edited to bullets only, and which are fine as they are?

Your words, 9 Oct: “We shouldn't be having that much text on screen - ever. Bullet points only”; then “make sure you understand what I'm asking before you change stuff - I don't want you to change lessons that are already good.”

Every live video's last slide was read by OCR and checked against its brief. The 21 candidates are on their own page with the real frame and Edit / Keep buttons: SCREEN_TEXT_SWEEP.html.

Default in force: no edit until you tap. Topic 36 L02, the one you showed me, is already fixed by an edit on its id. New batches cannot print a rule sentence (builder and checker changed, 9 Oct).

Decided (9 Oct 2026): Held for your taps, per your words this morning; this is not a blocker to anything else. The cards are at SCREEN_TEXT_SWEEP.html.

Revert: Tap Edit or Keep on each card there; an Edit is a visual-only change by the video's id, audio untouched.

Grade 4 · the four strand tests and the end-of-grade test

Should Grade 4's test forms be re-authored fresh under your Grade 3 ruling, or keep the bank-drawn forms built earlier today?

Tonight, giving the go-ahead for Grade 3's strand tests, you said: “the end-of-strand tests can't use any of the items from the PP100 or items that have come before. They'll have to be fresh items … of the same kind of standard as the actual exam.”

Grade 4's strand forms (twelve forms of 30) and grade-test forms (three of 36) were built this afternoon by drawing most items from the PP100 banks and withdrawing them from practice. You had not reviewed them and they are not in the TimeBack package.

Fresh forms mean every withdrawn item goes back into its PP100 bank, so the banks grow back towards 50 and the package gets a follow-up update.

Done on disk, uncommitted, by 21:00: all twelve strand forms and the three grade forms are fresh (468 items, 0 freshness hits against 4,391 earlier Grade 4 items and the released state texts; every checker at zero; every key agreed by three cold readers).

Two reading choices you may want to overrule. Depth: the Grade 4 forms keep the format's band (about 2 easy, 21 medium, 7 hard a strand form; 7 / 21 / 8 on the grade form), lighter on hard items than Grade 3's fresh forms (1 / 17 / 12). One-move atoms (a rule with one scene kind, e.g. first-formed layer, which test tells two minerals apart): the fresh item is a new scene and a new ask on the same move, with the nearest bank item recorded.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Applied your ruling to Grade 4 the same evening: every strand and grade form re-authored fresh (new scenes, data and names; pitched like the released Grade 5 state items; a word-overlap sweep plus a non-author review and two cold readers), the bank-drawn forms kept under retired/bank_drawn_2026-10-08/, the strand_test and grade_test markers cleared so the items return to the PP100 banks. Nothing is committed until you confirm the ruling reaches Grade 4.

Revert: Reverse it: the bank-drawn forms are restored from retired/ (or git) and their bank markers re-applied with mark_banks.py and _assemble.py mark.

Topic 4 · Lesson 3: Energy can move across a gap

Is light the course's carrier from the Sun, with "heat" never offered against it for the Sun?

Grade 3 said "the Sun's light carries energy to the puddle", and this topic keeps that sentence. But Lesson 3 (Energy can move across a gap) also teaches that a fire's heat crosses a gap, so a child who says "the Sun's heat" is not wrong.

Built: light in every taught sentence; no quiz or bank item pits light against heat for the Sun (the two that did were replaced by headlights and a projector); the written answers accept "the Sun's heat".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it so

Topic 4 · Lesson 3: Energy can move across a gap

Does the fireplace stay in Lesson 3 (Energy can move across a gap) as a case of heat crossing a gap?

Without it the lesson's cases say "light and sound cross gaps, heat needs touching", which Topic 6 and grades 6-8 would have to unteach.

Built: the fireplace stays in the article; a face at arm's length warms across the gap. (5 Oct 2026, after your Grade 3 Topic 12 notes: the VIDEO's heat-across-a-gap case is now Brady's hands held just above the same mug, so the boundary pair keeps its object and changes only the touching; the fireplace is the article's second heat case.)

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 4 · Lesson 1: Find the energy source and the receiver

Energy source and receiver first, then the carrier, then the gap?

The first lesson reads three happenings with one frame: the energy came from the Sun, so the Sun is the energy source; it went to Bennett's face, so his face is the receiver.

The second names what crossed between them (heat, light, sound or electricity) and coins "carrier"; the third asks whether the two have to touch.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Energy source and receiver first, because a carrier is named between two things, so the two roles have to exist before "what carried it?" makes sense

Topic 4 · Lesson 1: Find the energy source and the receiver

Is "the same thing happened three times, can you spot it?" headache enough for the first lesson?

The Sun warms Bennett's face, a drum is heard across the field, a lamp lights Blake's page, and Miss Murphy asks what happened three times.

There is no puzzle of nature here; the puzzle is the sameness, which is exactly the lesson's new skill.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built, because the lesson teaches a way of seeing, and a teacher's riddle is the honest headache for that

Topic 5 · Lesson 1: Moving things hand over energy when they hit

Do we coin "collision" at all in Grade 4?

NGSS 4-PS3-3 and the state tests say collide / collision; a child must recognise it. It is coined last in Lesson 1 (Moving things hand over energy when they hit), recalled by MCQ (nine letters), and "collide" is said once.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it

Topic 5 · Lesson 3: The sound and the warmth are energy too

Does the Lesson 3 (The sound and the warmth are energy too) headache's "where did the rest go?" overstate how much of a marble clack's energy becomes sound and warmth?

It is small in truth; the hammer-and-nail case carries the warmth honestly. The reviewer left it as a fit-for-purpose simplification.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it

Topic 5 · Lesson 3: The sound and the warmth are energy too

Does "hands over energy" open, with the prediction, the sound and warmth, and the evidence after?

First the bowling ball hands over some of its energy to the pins; then what each object does after the hit; then where the rest went; last the slide as evidence.

The other order would put the evidence lesson (faster means more energy, 4-PS3-1) straight after the prediction and leave the sound and warmth to close.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the order, because the third lesson answers a question the second leaves open, and the last needs only the first to read a slide as energy handed over

Topic 5 · Lesson 4: How far it slides is the evidence

Is the hit told as "hands over some of its energy", with no force drawn anywhere?

Every hit is an energy sentence: the ball has kinetic energy, hands over some, has less, so it slows.

No force arrow is drawn in the topic and no line says "push" in the last lesson, so a longer slide is never read as a harder push (the catalogue's FOR-12).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built, because the topic's job is energy, and one force arrow would invite the child to read distance as push

Topic 5 · Lesson 2: What each object does after the hit

Does the second lesson's rule skip mass, so a marble hitting a bowling ball is unexplained?

The rule is "When a moving object hits a still object, the still object starts moving and the moving object slows down."

Every pair shown is two matching things (marbles, toy cars, skateboards), and the one named simplification is "every hit on this page is straight on".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built, because the rule is true in its own words for every straight hit, and mass is grades 6 to 8's business

Topic 5 · Lesson 4: How far it slides is the evidence

Does the last lesson leave unsaid why the block stops, reading the slide only as evidence?

The same truck from the LOW mark slides the block 20 centimetres and from the HIGH mark 55; the slide is the evidence that the faster truck handed over more energy.

The block slides and stops, and nothing says why (friction, Grade 3's word) or where the block's energy went (it warmed the block and the floor, the third lesson's idea).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built, because the lesson's one idea is the slide as evidence, and the floor's warming can wait for a question rather than a lesson line

Topic 5 · Lesson 1: Moving things hand over energy when they hit

Is "the push runs out" avoided by wording rather than confronted by name?

The vault's rule for physics is to confront the age's misconceptions by name.

Here the ball slows "because it handed over some of its energy" every time; "runs out", "wears off" and "lost its push" appear nowhere, and no claim item asks it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built, because the correct account is spoken at every slow-down, and a second claim item on the same lesson would crowd a nine-item quiz

Topic 6

Do thermometer chips keep "70 °F" while the prose says "degrees Fahrenheit"?

Grade 3 Topic 17's instrument card introduced the symbol, which is the exception the units rule allows; on-screen numbers are numerals by your 2 October refinement.

Built: the symbol on chips, the words in prose.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 6 · Lesson 2: What happens to the temperatures

Does the topic say "heat moves" and never "thermal energy", though Topic 5 named it?

Every rule here is about heat and temperature: "Heat moves from the hotter thing to the colder thing." and "the hotter thing's temperature goes down and the colder thing's temperature goes up."

"Thermal energy" is not said once; Topic 5's warm nail "has more thermal energy", and your Grade 3 note asks for kinetic, thermal and gravitational by name.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Changed by the recommendation: one article line added to Lesson 2 (What happens to the temperatures) after the readings meet: "The cup's water has less thermal energy now, and the bowl's water has more." That lesson's video is live, so its script is unchanged; the matching spoken line is written in the build record as a proposed audio edit for that video.

Topic 6

Is cold fridge water called "hotter" than the ice, to break "cold things have no heat"?

The line is "The water is colder than your hand, but it is hotter than the ice", so heat moves from the water to the ice.

"Hotter" of cold water sounds odd to a nine-year-old; "warmer" would sound natural but gives the topic two comparison words.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "hotter", because one comparison word across every rule and item is what the lexicon promises, and the odd sound is the point: hot and cold are only a comparison

Topic 7

Is "pitch" coined after the first pair of sounds, not last?

A sort by examples wants the quantity named: "high pitched", never bare "high". Before the word is coined there is no name for it, so every case after the first pair can say "high pitched" only if the coin comes early. Topic 1 coined "friction" last; this topic coins after the whistle and the drum.

Built: coined after the first pair; the rule restates the coin last.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): After the first pair

Topic 7

Is "quieter" the word for the sister of "louder", never "softer"?

The author first built "softer"; the reviewer answered with the record: Grade 3 Topic 11 says quiet and quieter fifteen times, and the atom says "louder or quieter". "Soft" also has a second everyday reading (squishy). About sixty strings changed; "softer" stays accepted on any typed answer.

Built: "quieter" and "quiet" throughout.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Quieter

Topic 8 · Lesson 5: Send a message with a pattern of flashes

Does Lesson 5 (Send a message with a pattern of flashes) teach one agreed code, with no comparing of codes?

The standard behind it asks children to "generate and compare multiple solutions". The register sends comparing rival codes to grades 6 to 8. So every item gives the code as a table and asks the child to read or send with it.

Built: one code the class agrees; every read stem says "one message", because two patterns can run together.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 8 · Lesson 2: Spot the taller wave

Does "The taller wave made the duck bob higher" stay as one thing the class saw, with no rule?

The standard asks only for patterns in amplitude and wavelength. "A taller wave carries more energy" is a grades 6 to 8 line. The sentence is said once in Lesson 2 (Spot the taller wave), as a thing the children saw.

Built: the line stays; the two bank items that leaned on it (a cork bobs higher; quick taps make closer tops) are cut, because they tested the cause of the headache and not the atom.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the line, no rule

Topic 8 · Lesson 1: A wave carries energy across the water

Is the stone the energy source, the duck the receiver and the bump the carrier?

Lesson 1 says "Dana's stone was moving, so the stone had kinetic energy", then "energy went from the stone to the duck, and the bump carried it across the pond."

These are Topic 4's words, reused: the energy source, the receiver and the carrier.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. The wave is a carrier of energy, like light and sound, and never a kind of it

Topic 8 · Lesson 2: Spot the taller wave

Lesson 2's rope beat: leave it with two shakers, or keep trying to redraw it?

The live video says Dana shakes the rope gently and Dante shakes it hard, with a drawn child at each end; your one-child ruling would have Dana shake both times while the far-end child only holds the rope.

Two redraw attempts by id changed the words but not the picture (the tall wave still rises at the far end), so promoting them would put the mismatch you named on Topic 13 on screen.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave the live video as rendered; the two children are both doing something real (one holds, one shakes), and the text now reads Dana for both shakes

Topic 9 · Lesson 4: Electrical conductors and electrical insulators

Does pencil lead stay in Lesson 4 (Electrical conductors and electrical insulators) as the one named surprise?

Your brief allowed it "as the one non-metal conductor if you wish, named as a surprise".

Lesson 4 (Electrical conductors and electrical insulators) carries it in one paragraph, one picture, one row of the sort table and one quiz item, and the video now says it in one beat.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 9

Is "blocks electricity" the insulator's rule verb, with "cannot pass through" in the example lines?

The rule and the sort table say "A material that blocks electricity is called an electrical insulator", the positive word.

Every example line says "Electricity cannot pass through the plastic", so the child meets both.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep both

Topic 9 · Lesson 3: Build a circuit that lights a bulb

May the safety card show a crossed-out wall outlet?

The Lesson 3 (Build a circuit that lights a bulb) card draws a battery labelled "batteries only" and a wall outlet with a red cross, "never the wall outlet".

The red cross reads as never, but your no-outlet rule read literally would bar the outlet from any picture.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 10 · Lesson 2: The current carries the energy around the loop

Does Lesson 2 (The current carries the energy around the loop) keep the two-bulb test as its evidence that the current is not used up?

The test: two matching bulbs in one loop glow the same. If the first bulb used up the current, the second would glow dimmer.

A child who believes "used up" needs to see the case that breaks it; stating the rule alone teaches the obvious case only.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 10

Is "heat" the word for what a warm bulb gives out, not "warmth"?

The register's atom ENE4-065 says "warmth"; TEKS 4.8C says "thermal"; Grade 3 Topic 12 and Grade 4 Topic 4 use "heat" as the carrier word.

Built: "heat" in every rule and item, including the intro's line ("light, heat and sound"); "warm" stays as the felt adjective; typed answers accept warmth.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Heat, and change the register title — heat; the atom's title (ENE4-065, "warmth") is an edit in the knowledge-graph register, logged there as owed, not made here.

Topic 10 · Lesson 1: What each part of a circuit does

Are the parts' jobs taught first, then the current, then what comes out?

Lesson 1 gives each part one job: "The battery gives the energy, the wires join the parts into one loop, the bulb gives out light, and the switch completes or breaks the loop."

Lesson 2 coins current and says it carries the energy; lesson 3 sorts what a circuit gives out.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. A child needs the energy source named before the carrier, and the carrier before what comes out

Topic 10

Is the current drawn one way round the loop, with its direction never taught?

Every current drawing has arrowheads one way round the loop, and no sentence says which way.

This quietly rules out the belief that electricity leaves both ends of the battery and meets in the bulb, without voicing it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. A direction in words would be a fact to memorise with no job at this grade

Topic 12 · Lesson 3: Build a device to the criterion and the constraint

Does the build's second card (the turning straw to the rising cup) live wholly in Lesson 3 (Build a device to the criterion and the constraint)?

Lesson 2 (Spot the energy change in a device) teaches the frame on single devices, one step per card (the atom's note: Grade 5 chains them). The build in Lesson 3 (Build a device to the criterion and the constraint) needs a second step, the turning straw handing energy on to the rising cup. The reviewer's call: Lesson 2 (Spot the energy change in a device)'s video never carried that card and no Lesson 2 (Spot the energy change in a device) item tests it, so it belongs where it is used.

Built: the second card sits in Lesson 3 (Build a device to the criterion and the constraint) only; Lesson 2 (Spot the energy change in a device) shows the pinwheel, the fan and the flashlight's bulb.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Lesson 3 (Build a device to the criterion and the constraint) only

Topic 12 · Lesson 1: Moving air and moving water can turn things

Is the push on the blades taught before the energy change?

Lesson 1 answers "What pushes the blades round?" with "The moving air pushes on the blades, so the wheel turns."

Lesson 2 then says "Energy comes in with the moving air", and the force and the energy never share a sentence.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. The push a child can feel comes first; the energy account is the next lesson's job

Topic 12 · Lesson 1: Moving air and moving water can turn things

Is "the wind is energy" answered with "moving air has kinetic energy"?

Edgar says "The wind is energy. That is why it spins."

Lesson 1 answers "No, the wind is moving air", then Grade 3's sentence word for word, "A moving thing has kinetic energy", so moving air has kinetic energy.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. It is the energy-is-movement belief named in the catalogue, and the answer uses a sentence the child already knows

Topic 12 · Lesson 4: Test the design against the criterion

Does lesson 4 stop at "does not do the job yet", with no improving the design?

Eliza says "Edgar's looks the strongest, so his will lift the cup", and the fair-test table answers her.

The verdict words are "does the job" and "does not do the job yet"; met and not met, and improving a design, are Grade 5's.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as built. The lesson's one idea is that only the test tells, and "yet" leaves the door open without teaching the next step

Topic 12 · Lesson 4: Test the design against the criterion

Does this topic need its own fair-test lesson, or is recalling Topic 2's enough?

Your Lesson 4 (Test the design against the criterion) note: "to teach a fair test, you need an example sequence, with non-examples. So teaching what a fair test is needs to be its own lesson." That lesson exists: Topic 2 Lesson 5, "Fair test or unfair test?", with its sequence of tests and its two-things-changed non-examples. Lesson 4 here never set out to teach it; it now says so in one line ("You've already seen that in a fair test, only one thing is changed, and everything else stays the same."), opens its quiz with one Topic 2 recall item, and spends the rest on this topic's atom: run the same test on every design and read what happened.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Recall only. A second fair-test lesson here would re-teach Topic 2; if Topic 2's lesson is the one you want sharper, that is a note on Topic 2

Topic 13 · Lesson 2: Floater or sinker: the material decides

Do "floater" and "sinker" stand as the two coined words for a material?

An object floats; a material is a floater. The register's own atom title uses both words. The vault says coin no word the everyday word covers, and "floats / sinks" could be read as enough.

Built: both words coined in Lesson 2 (Floater or sinker: the material decides) on the sorted boxes and used from then on; the bank's two typed items ask for them.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 13 · Lesson 2: Floater or sinker: the material decides

Is "dense" named once, with one sentence naming "density", the right amount for Grade 4?

Your rule says name "density" when teaching heavy-for-its-size. Lesson 2 (Floater or sinker: the material decides) puts a wooden block and a steel block of the same size on Grade 3's pan balance; steel has more mass, so steel is heavy for its size. The article and the video then say "A material that is heavy for its size is called dense." and "How heavy a material is for its size is called its density." Neither word is ever typed; the quizzes and the bank test "dense" by recognition only. Grade 5 sharpens density against water.

Built: both sentences said once in Lesson 2 (Floater or sinker: the material decides), never typed.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep both sentences

Topic 13 · Lesson 2: Floater or sinker: the material decides

Does Lesson 2 (Floater or sinker: the material decides) keep its two lines about the steel boat?

Every object in the topic is solid all the way through; no cup, can, bottle or boat appears in any tub. A child who has seen a steel ship would otherwise meet "every piece of steel sinks" as a contradiction. The lines are "Every object here is solid all the way through, with no air inside. A steel boat is full of air, so it is a different case."

Built: the two lines close the Lesson 2 (Floater or sinker: the material decides) article.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 13 · Lesson 1: Same material, same answer in water

Should the live videos across Grade 4 be redrawn so one child carries each scene, as the text now does?

Your 8 Oct ruling (one character carries a scene) is applied to the text of about forty lessons across Grade 4; every video was already live, so the drawings still show the old cast (a second child dropping the rock, stirring the second glass, holding the second mug).

Where only the narration named the second child, an audio edit by id is cheap and has been done where a labelled card or map was spoken over (Topics 18 and 22); where the drawing shows the second child acting, a redraw risks the renderer repainting the scene more widely (one trial on this topic's Lesson 1 (Same material, same answer in water)).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): 00, after the Topic 13 Lesson 1 (Same material, same answer in water) trial redraw came back clean — Emery alone in every scene, audio byte-identical, nothing else repainted): redraw them, one topic at a time, with the same tight brief, promoting a result only when nothing beyond the children changed

Topic 13

Should the Grade 4 package ship with PP100 banks of 30 to 49 items a topic, now that 413 items are reserved for the strand and grade tests?

Every topic's bank was built to at least 50 items; the test forms draw from the same banks, and a drawn item must not also be served as practice (Becky's principle: a retest shows only unseen items).

Topping the banks back to 50 is new item-writing across all 38 topics, each needing a blind read.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Ship now; top the banks up as a later drop, topic by topic, as items are written and read

Topic 13

Should the article pictures ship as rendered, given the judge's sharpness verdicts?

Of the Grade 4 pictures the GPT judge read, most carry a FAIL verdict, and nearly all of those are its sharpness check alone — the natural photo focus you ruled fine on 2 Oct; each is overruled in the render index with that reason.

About three dozen fail on something other than sharpness (style, a count, an angle), each judged on the picture and overruled with a written reason; they could go back as retakes.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Ship as rendered; send the non-sharpness fails back as retakes in a later pass

Topic 14 · Lesson 4: Dissolved is not gone

Is "dissolve" coined in Lesson 4 (Dissolved is not gone), beside the beliefs it replaces, rather than in Lesson 3 (Say whether it is a solution) with "solution"?

Lesson 3 (Say whether it is a solution) sorts solutions on what a child can see: can you see the parts? It says what happens in plain words: the sugar broke into pieces too small to see and spread all through the water.

Lesson 4 (Dissolved is not gone) gives that happening its name, so the word lands next to "disappeared" and "melted", the two words children use instead. The reviewer agreed: one coin per lesson.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Lesson 4 (Dissolved is not gone)

Topic 14 · Lesson 2: Each part of a mixture is still itself

Does Lesson 2 (Each part of a mixture is still itself) keep its two-line note that some changes make a new material instead?

Every mixture in this topic lets you get each part back again. A baked cake does not, and Topic 16 teaches that boundary.

The note stops a child from filing a cake as a mixture. It teaches nothing about the change itself.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 15 · Lesson 3: Mix it: the mass stays the same

Does the sugar-in-water case belong here, while Topic 14 teaches "dissolved is not gone"?

Lesson 3 (Mix it: the mass stays the same) stirs 20 grams of sugar into 250 grams of water; the sugar goes out of sight and the scale reads 270 grams. The reason the mass holds is Topic 14's own sentence, recalled word for word: "A dissolved material is not gone. It is still there, in the liquid." The scale reading is the proof of that sentence.

Built: kept, with Topic 14's sentence under the sugar case and "disappears" cut from the intro.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 15 · Lesson 2: Add the pieces to find the whole

May the bank run the rule backwards, a whole minus one piece, as medium and hard items?

Lesson 2 (Add the pieces to find the whole) teaches adding the pieces to get the whole. Six bank items and one practice item give the whole and one piece and ask for the other piece, so the child subtracts. Two-digit subtraction is grade 2 maths, and every why shows the subtraction line.

Built: kept; the MCQ forms tagged medium, the typed forms tagged hard.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 15

Should PP-8's "lighter" distractor be a false mechanism, or the reviewer's compensation line?

PP-8 asks why a pizza cut into eight slices still reads 400 grams. The reviewer proposed "The slices are lighter, but there are more of them." A careful nine-year-old can defend that line (each slice lighter, more slices, the same total), so it would be a second right answer. The fixer wrote "The slices are lighter, but the scale adds a gram for each slice." instead, a mechanism that is plainly false.

Built: the false mechanism.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the false mechanism

Topic 16 · Lesson 3: The clue that a new material formed

Is "it will not change back" the clue you want, with the property named first?

Lesson 3 (The clue that a new material formed)'s clue is a changed property that will not change back: a new colour, a new smell, bubbles, or a new kind of solid. The property is always named first, and the frozen puddle that melts back by noon is the one changed-back case. Grade 5 sharpens the signs later.

Built: as above, with two boundary lines now in the article (bubbles in a boiling pot are water vapour, not this clue; a new shape is not a clue).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 16

May a wax crayon melt in a hot car as a wrong option?

One bank item asks which change makes a new material. One wrong option is "a wax crayon melts in a hot car". You named the melting crayon as the everyday-uncertainty case for Grade 3; here it is never a key, and a hot car does melt crayons.

Built: kept as a wrong option.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 17 · Lesson 3: Test a mineral to tell it apart

Does "how it breaks" (cleavage) stay out of Lesson 3 (Test a mineral to tell it apart)?

Florida's standard lists cleavage among a mineral's properties. Lesson 3 (Test a mineral to tell it apart) already carries four tests in a 147-word video and a five-column table, and no released Grade 5 item asks about cleavage. Mica's "black flaky" sheets in Lesson 2 (Rocks are made of minerals) carry the idea as a describing word.

Built: left out.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it out. If you want the Florida word honoured, one caption on the three-minerals picture does it and nothing else changes: "Mica breaks into thin flat sheets. How a mineral breaks is another clue geologists use."

Topic 17

Should Topic 17 say once that glassy obsidian is the one rock with no grains you can see?

Topic 17 teaches that a rock is made of grains of minerals. Topic 18 meets obsidian, a black rock that is smooth like glass, and its review softened that lesson's line to "no grains you can see, even up close", so the two topics no longer contradict each other. Topic 18's reviewer asked whether Topic 17 should carry a scope line too.

Built: no line in Topic 17.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): No line. A child meets obsidian in Topic 18, where the softened line sits, and naming an exception before the fact is learned blurs the fact

Topic 18

Is "sediment" a third coined term in this topic?

The topic coins "igneous rock" and "sedimentary rock". The loose pieces that settle to the bottom of water need a name too, or the forming story says "the small pieces" every time.

Topic 20 and the Grade 5 STAAR use the word; it is recognised in an MCQ, never typed.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes

Topic 18

Does the topic say "lava" only, never "magma"?

Grade 3 taught "lava" for the melted rock that comes out of a volcano. The register's text for this atom carries only lava.

"Melted rock deep underground" carries the underground case in plain words, so nothing said is false; Grade 6 to 8 names magma.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Lava only

Topic 18

Does Topic 17 gain a scope line about glassy obsidian?

Topic 17 says a rock is made of grains of minerals. Obsidian has no grains a child can see, even up close.

This topic says "no grains you can see, even up close: smooth like glass", which fits both. Topic 17 is not edited.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Add the scope line — NO line in Topic 17 — Topic 17's own card 2 answers this question the other way (naming an exception before the fact is learned blurs the fact), and the topic that owns the text decides; Topic 18's softened wording already fits both.

Topic 18

Granite is drawn two ways across Topics 17 and 18: a scope line, or extend Topic 17's drawer?

Topic 17's grain box draws granite as speckles on pink. Topic 18's card draws a locked tiling of pink, white, gray and black, because the sort rests on "locked together".

A child who meets both sees two pictures of one rock. One depiction per thing is the standing rule.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Changed by the recommendation: Topic 17's close-up of granite (grains big enough to see: grain_sizes and the Lesson 1 (What igneous rock looks like) quiz box q_grains_big) is now a 6 by 5 locked tiling in Topic 18's granite colours; the bank's black speckled stone keeps its own look; alt and blind texts and one quiz item's feedback (key unchanged) follow; figures reviewed on the render; checker 0 FAIL, S46 B=0, articles 0 FAIL, sequences 0 FAIL.

Topic 19

Do the bank's family-sort items stand with three options, not four?

A family-sort item asks "which family is this rock?" and the sort has three classes: igneous, sedimentary, metamorphic.

The brief asks for four-option items, so v1 added "a mineral" as a fourth. A mineral is the stuff a grain is made of, not a rock family, so no child can act on that option and it is never the key.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Three options

Topic 19 · Lesson 1: Spot metamorphic rock: wavy stripes, or flat sheets

Does "metamorphic means changed: every metamorphic rock was once a different rock" stay at the coin in Lesson 1 (Spot metamorphic rock: wavy stripes, or flat sheets)?

Lesson 1 (Spot metamorphic rock: wavy stripes, or flat sheets) coins the family by its look. The coin wants a because, and the full how (heat and squeezing deep underground) is Lesson 2 (How heat and squeezing change a rock into a new rock)'s lesson.

Built: the one line at the coin, and nothing more of Lesson 2 (How heat and squeezing change a rock into a new rock) in Lesson 1 (Spot metamorphic rock: wavy stripes, or flat sheets).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 20 · Lesson 5: What carries the pieces

Do pieces lying right beside a cracked boulder count as weathering, not erosion?

A piece that breaks off and drops a few inches has moved, and Lesson 5 (What carries the pieces) names Earth's pull as a carrier. The line is drawn at "somewhere new": pieces right beside the rock they broke from are weathering; a heap at the foot of a tall cliff, or a landslide, is erosion by Earth's pull. The line is written once, in Lesson 4 (Erosion: the pieces are carried away), and no item sits on a case between the two.

Built: the line at "somewhere new" in Lesson 4 (Erosion: the pieces are carried away); Lesson 5 (What carries the pieces) names Earth's pull as the carrier of pieces that fall or roll away.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the line. It matches TEKS 4.10B and Florida 4.E.6.4

Topic 20

Is "none of these" acceptable as the fourth option of the capstone's sort?

The sort has three words (weathering, erosion, deposition), and a four-option bank item needs a fourth. "None of these" is the key in two hard items (melted rock cooling into hard rock; a rock unchanged in a museum case), never padding, and those two are never drawn into one test. The alternative is a fourth sister word, "a landslide", which the naming items already use.

Built: "none of these" on ten sort items, keyed in two.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep. It also tests that a child can refuse all three

Topic 21 · Lesson 3: Read the landscape's story from its layers

Does this topic coin only "landscape", and stay with "layer", "fossil" and "oldest" for the rest?

Grade 3 coined "fossil", Topic 18 coined "sedimentary rock" and "sediment", and Topic 20 coined "deposition"; this topic recalls each in one line and uses it.

The grown-up names for layered rock and for the bottom-is-oldest rule belong to grades 6 to 8.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin only "landscape"

Topic 21

Is "hundreds or even thousands of years" the right size to give for one layer?

Children think a layer forms in days, and the atom gives no number.

A flood can lay a layer in a day; most layers take far longer, so the article gives one honest size and nothing in years for a whole cliff.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 22 · Lesson 1: What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust

Should "crust" be typed, or picked from a list of sister words?

"Crust" is the topic's one new word, coined at the end of Lesson 1 (What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust) after four cases.

The brief for this topic asked for it to be picked among soil, lava and sand; the reviewer says a nine-year-old owns a five-letter word, and typing is the stronger recall.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Changed by the recommendation: "crust" left RECALL_BY_MCQ; the practice's term item PR-14 and the bank's hard EAR4-045 term item PP-36 are typed (crust / the crust / Earth's crust and child spellings accepted; keys unchanged); Lesson 1 (What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust)'s recognition MCQ stays; checker 0 FAIL, S46 B=0, articles 0 FAIL, key tells 0, sequences 0 FAIL.

Topic 22 · Lesson 2: How the shaking spreads out as waves

Is "seismograph" a word to keep?

Lesson 2 (How the shaking spreads out as waves) names the machine that draws the ground's shaking as a line, after saying what it does; the word-level check flags it as unusual.

A nine-year-old meets the word in every earthquake news story, and a recognition item (the machine among a thermometer and a stopwatch) now sits before any stem uses it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 22

Is the seismograph's line a dark ink line, or Topic 8's blue water wave with a caption?

The line is drawn with Topic 8's wave drawing, which in Topic 8 is a blue line with pale water under it.

Both reviews said the water fill misleads: a pen line has no water under it, and the reading (how tall the line is) is the same either way.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): The ink line

Topic 22 · Lesson 1: What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust

Does the Earth ball keep its label "the hot rock below"?

Lesson 1 (What is under the ground: Earth's rocky crust) draws Earth as a ball: a thin dark ring for the crust and a pale orange inside labelled "the hot rock below"; the caption says the rock below the shell is very hot.

The layers below the crust are grade 6 to 8's; the label names no layer, but it is one fact beyond the atom, and Topic 18 has already said the rock deep down is so hot that some of it has melted.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 23 · Lesson 2: Where the fallen water goes

Does "collection" stand as the coined name of the fourth step?

The register names the atom "collection", and the released grade-5 tests print four-step loops with a fourth name (collection, accumulation or runoff, by form).

The brief for this topic named precipitation, evaporation and condensation as the words to coin and said nothing about the fourth.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it

Topic 23 · Lesson 1: Water falls from clouds: rain, snow, sleet and hail

Does "what a cloud is" stay inside Lesson 1 (Water falls from clouds: rain, snow, sleet and hail), three lines and a drawing?

No Grade 3 or Grade 4 atom says what a cloud is made of, yet the loop cannot be traced without it, and "a cloud is cotton balls or smoke" is the most-documented belief about the water cycle.

Built: an opening section in Lesson 1 (Water falls from clouds: rain, snow, sleet and hail) (a cloud is many tiny drops of water; it only looks like cotton balls), one quiz item and two bank items on it; the cloud's forming is left to Lesson 3 (The water cycle: four steps in one loop).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it inside Lesson 1 (Water falls from clouds: rain, snow, sleet and hail)

Topic 23

Is a bank with no typed items right for this topic?

Your standing rule is that a bank's hard items are typed (a term or a number). Here the three coined words are nine letters or more, so each is picked from a list by the spelling rule, and the topic has no number to type.

The first draft typed four everyday words (cloud, drops, the sea, the Sun); the reviewer cut them as one-step recalls of words the lesson prints, and the hard tier is now twelve MCQs (correct-reason claims, the loop counted or run backwards, a two-idea chain, one two-of-four select).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): No typed items here

Topic 23 · Lesson 4: The Sun's energy keeps the water cycle going

Without the Sun, does the course say the water cycle stops, or almost stops?

Lesson 4 (The Sun's energy keeps the water cycle going) imagines the Sun switched off: the water stays cold and hardly any evaporates. The reader asked for one strength across the lesson and its items.

Built: "hardly any water would evaporate… the water cycle would almost stop" in the article, the script and Lesson 4 (The Sun's energy keeps the water cycle going)'s quiz; the With-no-Sun table beside it still prints "stops" until the figure gets its two-cell edit.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Almost stops

Topic 24

Is 97 / 2 / 1 the right split for the hundred squares?

The teaching figure pours all of Earth's water into 100 equal squares: 97 salt water in the ocean, 2 frozen, 1 fresh water we can reach.

The real shares are 96.5 ocean, 1.74 ice, 0.76 fresh water under the ground, and rivers and lakes together are less than a fiftieth of one square.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep 97 / 2 / 1

Topic 24

Is "about 9 of every 10 cups" close enough for the ocean's share of the water in the air?

Lesson 3 shows ten cups of water going into the air; nine light up from the ocean, one from lakes, rivers and wet ground.

The real share is about 86 in 100; "nearly 9" buys nothing at Grade 4.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 24

Does the one line about taking salt out of sea water stay in Lesson 2?

A child who has just heard "the ocean is no use for drinking" asks at once why we do not take the salt out.

Lesson 2 answers in one line: some seaside towns do, with huge machines and a lot of energy. No term is coined.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 24

In the model, is the ice "the cold spot, like the cold air high up", or "the ice caps"?

The model is a bowl of warm salt water, a cup, plastic wrap and a bag of ice on top; the ice makes the vapor condense.

Calling the ice "the ice caps" would teach that clouds form on glaciers; Lesson 5 says instead that in the real cycle the solid water is the snow and the ice of the ice caps and glaciers.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): The cold spot

Topic 24

Does a hard typed "ice cap" item belong under the topic's first atom?

The bank's difficulty rises with each atom's place in the topic, so the first atom's items are easy.

The hard tier must also recall every coined word of the topic, and "ice cap" is coined in Lesson 1, so the review added a typed ice-cap item (PP-41) under the first atom in the hard tier.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it; the term rule outranks the rising-order line

Topic 25

Does "mild" stay as the word for Austin's winters?

Austin's climate sentence says "mild winters, with almost no snow"; a nine-year-old in Texas hears "mild" on the weather report, and no other plain word says neither cold nor hot.

The checker flags it as an unusual word eleven times; the review said keep it and explain it once.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "mild", add it to the course's word list — "mild" stays, explained once; adding it to the readability word list is an edit to the shared checker (build_tools_check_readability.py), logged as owed for the session that owns the shared tools.

Topic 26

Is "interaction" the right word to coin at grade 4?

The register's title for the atom says "Spot the interaction", and Grade 5's lesson on Earth's spheres will need the word.

It is eleven letters, so children pick it from three words (a pattern / a legend / an interaction) and never type it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it

Topic 26

May the PP100 keep two typed "legend" items as its only typed tier?

The hard tier is typed where typing does a job. "Legend" is six letters a nine-year-old can spell; "interaction" is not; "which part acts on which" is a two-part answer, not one word.

Built: two typed "legend" items, two two-of-four selects and eleven hard MCQs. Reader C's three other answers per typed item (key, map key, a legend, three misspellings) all pass the accept lists.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes

Topic 26

Does the hawk-and-mouse sentence stay in Lesson 2?

Lesson 2 teaches a fact true of every case (each part acts on the others) with examples only, as the Forces log asks for a universal attribute.

The one near miss children raise is an animal acting on an animal: both are living things, so that is inside one part, and eleven items key on it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 26

Does the parts' order LAND · WATER · AIR · LIVING THINGS stand everywhere?

The first draft drew the four cards WATER · AIR · LAND · LIVING THINGS while the rule said land, water, air, living things; the figure review asked for one order.

Built: LAND · WATER · AIR · LIVING THINGS on the cards, the arrows grid, the caption, the rule and the Lesson 2 video's chips.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 27 · Lesson 1: How people get electricity from the wind

Is "energy resource" the right word to coin here, in Topic 27?

The register names the four atoms "the wind / moving water / sunlight / plants as an energy resource", and the four lessons need one word for what the four have in common.

Built: coined at the end of Lesson 1 (How people get electricity from the wind) as "A thing in nature that people get energy from is called an energy resource", carried by one line per lesson and one item per quiz, and recalled by MCQ (a two-word term is never typed).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it here

Topic 27 · Lesson 3: How people get electricity from sunlight

Is one plain line enough for "the panel needs the light, not the warmth"?

Children run solar panels together with things that warm in the Sun, but the misconception catalogue has no row for it, and the rule says do not invent a belief to test.

Built: one Lesson 3 (How people get electricity from sunlight) line ("A cold panel in bright winter sun makes plenty of electricity."), one quiz item on what the panel needs, and one hard bank item (a cold clear winter day against a hot cloudy summer day).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it plain

Topic 27

Does "energy resource" stay the course's word, and "energy source" go from Topics 28 and 29?

Topic 27 coined "energy resource"; Topic 29 said "energy source" 64 times and Topic 28 three times. A child would meet two names for one thing.

The register's name is "energy resource", so the coordinator ruled it for all three topics; the Topic 28 and 29 fix passes carry their halves.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "energy resource"

Topic 27

Does Topic 27 describe the building that burns wood chips without naming it?

Topic 28 coins "power plant" (the US word), and Topic 27 comes first; Topic 27 had said "power station" in a heading, a line and two items.

Ruled: Topic 27 says "a big building that burns wood chips and corn stalks to make electricity"; Topic 29's fix pass says "power plant".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the description

Topic 27 · Lesson 4: How people get energy from plants: wood to burn and food to eat

Does FOOD stay as the word on the arrow from food to the eater?

Both blind readers picked the hay-and-cow item's answer by shape: the arrow said ENERGY, the only word that was not a carrier.

Ruled: the arrow says FOOD, the word Topic 34 prints on its eater arrows, and Lesson 4 (How people get energy from plants: wood to burn and food to eat) says why in one line ("No wire, no light and no heat carries this energy. The food itself carries it, so the card's arrow says FOOD.").

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep FOOD

Topic 28 · Lesson 1: Coal: the black rock that burns

Is "fuel" coined here, in Lesson 1 (Coal: the black rock that burns), before Topic 29 sorts the energy resources?

A thing people burn to get heat is called a fuel. Topic 29 will sort seven energy resources and needs the word.

Topic 27 (burning logs) is being written at the same time and could coin it first.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it here; whichever topic ships first keeps the coin, the other recaps it in one line

Topic 28 · Lesson 2: Oil: the thick dark liquid pumped up from deep rock

Does Lesson 2 (Oil: the thick dark liquid pumped up from deep rock)'s shorter rule stand, without "the tiny spaces of"?

The 150-word video cap cut Lesson 2 (Oil: the thick dark liquid pumped up from deep rock)'s rule to "People pump oil up from deep rock, make gasoline from it, and burn the gasoline in car engines."

The tiny-spaces idea stays in the article, the Topic 19 recall, the attached question and five items.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the shorter rule

Topic 28 · Lesson 1: Coal: the black rock that burns

Does "a big wheel" stay as the word for the turbine?

Inside a power plant the steam pushes a big wheel round, and the turning wheel turns a machine that makes electricity.

Topic 27 uses the same chain and the same words; "turbine" is a grade 6-8 word.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "a big wheel"

Topic 28

Is "energy resource" the course's word, never "energy source"?

Topic 27 coins "energy resource" for the wind, moving water, sunlight and plants: things in nature that people get energy from.

This topic had three "energy source" strings; the coordinator changed them to "energy resource" so the two topics say one word.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): "energy resource" everywhere

Topic 28

Is "power plant" coined here, with Topic 27 describing the building without naming it?

A big building where electricity is made is called a power plant. The coordinator ruled that this topic coins the word, Topic 27 says "a big building where electricity is made", and Topic 29 uses "power plant".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it here

Topic 28

Is "fossil fuel" left out here and said once in Topic 29 only?

The register does not name it; the three story strips all end in "from living things long ago", which is the word's reason.

The coordinator ruled: not here; Topic 29's nonrenewable lesson says it once, recognition only, because NGSS and STAAR use it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it to Topic 29

Topic 29 · Lesson 6: Weigh up an energy resource: one advantage, one disadvantage

Are "advantage" and "disadvantage" coined here, or does the topic say only "a good side" and "a bad side"?

A good side of using a resource is called an advantage; a bad side, a disadvantage. The atom asks for one of each, and TEKS 4-11A and the STAAR items use the words.

They are nine- and twelve-letter words, so no item asks a child to type them.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin them; a child meets them on the test

Topic 29

Does the bank's three-option sort set stand: renewable / nonrenewable / not an energy resource?

A two-bin sort has no honest fourth option. The third option is a real key once (the electricity in a wire) and a live distractor on the other eight sort items.

Topic 19's three-family set took the same shape.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 29

Is the topic called "Which energy resources nature can replace", not "energy sources"?

Topic 27 coins "energy resource": a thing in nature that people get energy from. This topic was written before Topics 27 and 28 existed and said "energy source" 101 times.

The coordinator changed every one, including the topic title and three lesson titles; your architecture row still says "sources".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Changed by the recommendation: the architecture row (grade4/00_course_architecture.md, Topic 29) and the Grade 4 index now say "Which energy resources nature can replace", the topic's own title; no student text changed.

Topic 29

Is "power plant" the word, never "power station"?

A big building where electricity is made is called a power plant. Topic 28 coins it, and this topic said "power station" 53 times.

The coordinator changed every one so the three topics say one word.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): "power plant" everywhere

Topic 30

Should the midday Sun be "toward the south", or stay with east and west only?

In the US the midday Sun is always in the southern half of the sky.

The atom asks only for east, highest, west, and every drawing is a side view, east at the left.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Stay with east and west; a third direction word would need its own drawing and items

Topic 30 · Lesson 3: Read a season from the records

Is the daylight plateau right to keep: June 15 hours, July 15 hours?

Whole-hour records for a town at about 40 degrees north genuinely round to 15 and 15.

Lesson 3 (Read a season from the records) reads the two equal bars as "the tallest"; Lesson 2 (Longer days in summer, shorter days in winter) and Lesson 4 (What comes next? Predict the next step in the pattern) now say out loud that after June the daylight stops growing; no prediction item sits on the plateau.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it; a child should meet a pattern that flattens before it turns

Topic 30

Do the calendar's season brackets stay under the class's daylight graph?

The teaching graph marks WINTER under December, January and February and FALL under September, October and November, the calendar's seasons.

The bars tell a slightly different story: November and February both show 11 hours, yet one sits under FALL and the other under WINTER. A sharp child may ask why.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the brackets as built and add nothing; the Portland temperature graph, where the calendar fits, does the worked teaching

Topic 30

Do the three-bar season items keep their month names hidden?

Eleven items show three bars for "three months in a row" and ask the season. With the months printed, a child answers from the calendar (September to November is fall) without reading a bar.

With the bars labelled 1st, 2nd, 3rd, the direction and height do the work: rising from the middle is spring, falling is fall, flat at the bottom winter, flat at the top summer.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the months hidden on every three-bar item

Topic 31 · Lesson 1: Earth spins around once a day

Does Lesson 1 (Earth spins around once a day) show a lit half and a dark half, never asking why it is night?

Earth is drawn from above the North Pole, the Sun's side lit, the other side dark, so the town dot goes right round and comes back.

The article says only "the half facing the Sun is lit up" and "the other half is dark".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it at that line

Topic 31 · Lesson 4: Different stars in different seasons

Does Lesson 4 (Different stars in different seasons) keep its one line saying Orion is up in the daytime in July?

The atom is patterns only: different star patterns in the evening sky in different seasons.

A child asks "where did Orion go?", and the honest answer is Grade 3's sentence that the stars are still there by day, plus one line: in July Orion is in the daytime sky, so sunlight hides it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 31

Do "day" and "year" stay as coined terms, each with a typed recall?

They are everyday words, but the atoms give them their science meaning: one spin is one day, one trip around the Sun is one year.

Each has a recognition item (a day / an hour / a year) before its typed item, in the quiz, the practice set and the bank.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep them as terms

Topic 31 · Lesson 3: Star patterns keep their shapes

Does "constellation" stay as one named word with two recognition items?

The student's word is "star pattern"; Lesson 3 (Star patterns keep their shapes) names "constellation" once as the word people who study the stars use.

One quiz item and one bank item ask for it among sister words; it is never typed (thirteen letters).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep both items

Topic 31

Do two simplifications stand: patterns move without turning, and no word "axis"?

The drawn Dipper at midnight is the 9 PM Dipper moved up and to the right, the same way up; the real pattern also turns a little about the North Star over three hours, and a turned drawing would read as a changed shape to a nine-year-old, so the captions say only "moved".

Earth "spins all the way around"; "axis" is not coined, and Grade 5 adds it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Accept both

Topic 32

Should "quarter Moon" be said once beside "half Moon"?

The register's word is "half Moon": one side lit, with a straight edge down the middle.

Some US tests call the same shape a "first quarter" or "third quarter" Moon, which a nine-year-old reads as a quarter lit.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it out; Grade 5 adds the test name where a released item needs it

Topic 32 · Lesson 3: Put the Moon's shapes in order

Does the lit-side rule stand, with its one "from the United States" line?

Lesson 3 (Put the Moon's shapes in order) teaches that the lit part is on the right while it is getting bigger and on the left while it is getting smaller.

Without the side, a growing crescent and a shrinking crescent are the same picture, and no child can put the cards in order.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the rule and the line as built

Topic 32

Do the two unnamed shapes stay labelled "more than half lit"?

The register names four shapes; the strip draws all eight nights, so two cards sit between half and full with no name.

The lesson says "we just say the Moon is more than half lit"; the grade 6-8 word is "gibbous".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the label; a blank card under a named row reads as a mistake

Topic 32 · Lesson 5: Why the Moon's shape seems to change

Should Lesson 5 (Why the Moon's shape seems to change) say why a full Moon is not in Earth's shadow?

The lesson says Earth's shadow is not the cause of the shapes, and the drawing from above puts the full Moon on the far side of Earth with no shadow drawn.

A sharp child may ask why the Moon there is not in Earth's shadow. The answer is that the Moon's path is tilted, so it usually passes above or below the shadow, a grade 6-8 idea.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it out

Topic 33

Is "pump" said, explained once, or does the heart only "squeeze and push blood"?

A thing that pushes liquid along is called a pump; the lesson says that in one plain line before "the heart pumps blood".

The register's own example says "the heart pumps blood", and it is the word every later grade uses.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it, explained

Topic 33 · Lesson 1: Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do

Is "stethoscope" a word to keep in Lesson 1 (Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do)'s opening scene?

The doctor presses a stethoscope, "a tube for listening", to Roman's chest; it is the real thing a nine-year-old has met at a check-up.

The word appears five times, always with the scene or the gloss beside it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 34 · Lesson 1: What a plant makes its food from: light, water and air

Is "carbon dioxide" recognised among its sister words, never typed?

The gas a leaf takes in from the air is named carbon dioxide: 13 letters, two words.

The standing rule recalls a hard-to-spell coined term by picking it from a list (oxygen / water vapor / carbon dioxide), not by typing.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it picked from a list

Topic 34 · Lesson 1: What a plant makes its food from: light, water and air

Does Lesson 1 (What a plant makes its food from: light, water and air) leave "the plant also uses the sugar to grow" to Grade 5?

Lesson 1 (What a plant makes its food from: light, water and air) says the sugar is the plant's food and stops there. Grade 5 (LIF5-010) lands the keystone that a plant's body is built from the air's carbon dioxide, not the soil.

A nine-year-old may ask what the sugar is for; one line here would open the Grade 5 idea early.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it to Grade 5

Topic 34

Does the chip on every eater's arrow say FOOD, across the whole course?

On an energy chain card, the arrow from the Sun to a plant carries the chip LIGHT. Topic 27 printed ENERGY on the arrow from an eaten thing to its eater.

Here the eaten thing is the eater's food, so the chip reads FOOD; the coordinator ruled FOOD course-wide, and Topic 27's card changes in its fix pass.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): FOOD on every eater's arrow, LIGHT on the Sun's

Topic 34

Is "The roots take in water from the soil, not food." the line Topic 35 builds on?

The first draft said "The roots take in only water from the soil" on twelve lines and in one key.

Topic 35 says plants take in the small bits the soil holds through their roots, so "only water" would have been contradicted one topic later.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "water, not food"

Topic 35 · Lesson 4: Where the dead leaves go: decomposers feed the soil

Is "nutrients" named once, as the label for the tiny bits, and never typed?

The lesson explains first: decomposers break dead leaves into tiny bits, the bits go into the soil, the grass takes them in through its roots and grows.

Then one line in the Lesson 4 (Where the dead leaves go: decomposers feed the soil) article and video: "These tiny bits are called nutrients." TEKS 4.12B and STAAR grade 5 use the word.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Name it once, as built

Topic 35

Does the mushroom sit beside the field web, with no arrow?

Every arrow on every web means one thing: it points from the food to the one that eats it.

A decomposer feeds on dead things from the whole web, so its arrows would come from every card, and the first reading lesson would have two kinds of arrow.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it beside the web; Grade 5's web-building lesson adds decomposer arrows

Topic 35 · Lesson 2: Living things that eat other living things: consumers

Does "energy" stay in the consumer rule, spoken in two videos?

The register's wording is "a consumer gets its energy by eating other living things", and it carries Topic 34's thread: the Sun's light carries energy to the grass, the rabbit eats the grass, so the energy passes to the rabbit.

The video tool's banned-word list has "energy" (a physics word in most topics). The Lesson 2 (Living things that eat other living things: consumers) and summary videos were allowed the word on 2 October by a data row, not an edit to the tool.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "energy"

Topic 36

Is "trait" coined here, on top of Grade 3's "feature"?

Grade 3 Topic 34 coined "feature" for something that is part of an animal's own body. A skill or a behavior is not a body part, and TEKS and STAAR say "trait".

Built: Lesson 1 coins "trait" as the wider word (something a living thing has or can do), with a bridge line: "Floppy ears are a feature of the body, and a feature is a trait." Grade 3's sentence is recalled once, word for word.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin "trait" here

Topic 36

Do the four role words stay recognised by MCQ, never typed?

The role words are inherited trait, acquired trait, instinct and learned behavior. Your brief for this topic said recall them by MCQ among their sisters.

The PP100 ruling wants the hard tier typed; "learned" is seven letters and spellable. Built: MCQ-only for all four, "trait" the one typed key (two bank items and one practice item).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep them MCQ-only

Topic 36

Does "from the start" stand in the rule, rather than "at birth"?

The deciding question over the parents' box is "Was it there from the start, from the parents?" A plant is not born, so Lesson 1 says the sunflower's yellow petals "came from the parent plant, and they showed when the young plant flowered".

Lesson 1 adds that some traits from the parents show later, as the living thing grows. "At birth" is one word on the drawn card, in the lexicon and in Topic 38's recap of it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep "from the start"

Topic 37 · Lesson 5: Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle

Does "metamorphosis" stay as the scientists' word, said once and never tested?

The tested words are "complete change" and "gradual growth", the pair the architecture row gives.

Lesson 5 (Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle) says once: "Scientists call a complete change complete metamorphosis, and gradual growth incomplete metamorphosis."

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the plain pair as the tested words; say "metamorphosis" once, as built

Topic 37

Is "fertilization" right to coin at Grade 4?

When a tiny part of the pollen joins a tiny part deep inside the flower, the lesson calls that joining fertilization.

The register's atom (LIF4-041) names the word; it is 13 letters, so it is recognised among its sisters and never typed.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Coin it, as built

Topic 37 · Lesson 5: Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle

Does the frog sort as a complete change, beside the butterfly?

A strict insect reading keeps "complete change" for egg, larva, pupa, adult. Grade 4 standards and texts put the frog with the butterfly.

The lesson's one sorting question (does the young look like a small grown-up?) gives the same answer: a tadpole does not.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the frog

Topic 37 · Lesson 4: What a seed needs to start growing: germination

Does Lesson 4 (What a seed needs to start growing: germination)'s one line about light for the grown plant stay?

The line is "Once its leaves are open, the plant needs light to make its own food."

Lesson 4 (What a seed needs to start growing: germination) teaches that a seed needs water and warmth and no light to start. Without the line a child reads "no light" as true of the whole plant.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it

Topic 38

Is "extinct" typed in the bank's hard tier, with child spellings accepted?

The brief for this topic put both coined words in the recall-by-MCQ list. "Extinct" is seven letters, and the near-miss grader forgives one or two letters off (extinkt, exstinct).

The review ruled: type it in the bank only. One hard item (Steller's sea cow) asks the student to type the word; the Lesson 3 quiz and the practice still offer it among its sisters.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it typed in the bank

Topic 38

Are alligator bones in Montana the right third fossil case?

The lesson says "an alligator can stay alive only where it is warm all year", so back then Montana was warm all year. Alligator relatives really are found in Montana's rocks.

Grade 3 used palm leaves in snow for the same move, and this case keeps the plant-then-animal variety.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the alligator

Topic 38

Does the passenger pigeon's story stay without its cause?

Lesson 3 says that two hundred years ago flocks flew over Ohio in their millions, that the last one died in 1914 in a zoo in Ohio, and that a kind can be gone forever even when it was common not long ago. It does not say why.

The reviewer offered one line you could add: "People hunted them until none were left." The topic's cause everywhere else is the place changing, and nothing frightening is said.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave the line out

Topic 1

Multi-part questions: which platform supports them, and in what shape?

You said "we can actually do multi-part questions now" (Lesson 3, question 2 note). Our content schema, the site builder, the blind bundle, the TimeBack exporter and the TimeBack contract (`activity-ledger-v3.schema.json`) have no multi-part item and no grouping field; the nearest is `element_order` within an atom plus a `passage_dependent` flag.

Lesson 4's two-surfaces item ships for now as three consecutive one-stem items ("Part 1 of 3 …", "Part 2 of 3 …", "Part 3 of 3 …"), each restating the scene in one line, flagged `passage_dependent`.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep three consecutive items until the shape is known — three consecutive items until the platform names a multi-part shape (James, 5 Oct: multi-part questions are available; the shape is still unspecified in the TimeBack contract).

Topic 3

Does the live summary video gain Lesson 3b's rule, as one added beat by Peps id?

The summary says each lesson's rule in its own words. Lesson 3b's rule is new: "A magnet always pulls steel and never pushes it away. Near a magnet, steel is a magnet too, and its near end is always the opposite pole."

The summary video is live (`video_1791274453276_919f3d3574eb02fc0b21`, 114 words). One added beat after the attract / repel line takes it to about 135 words, still under the 175 cap; the drawing is the lettered paperclip beside the magnet's north pole, as the lesson's own figure draws it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes — one added beat by id, after your read of Lesson 3b, never a re-render

Topic 5

May bank items read how far a block slid off a drawn ruler, in centimeters?

The NGSS boundary bars numbers for energy, not for distance; every energy sentence stays "more" or "less". The one item that was a bare subtraction with no energy step was cut.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes, where an energy step rides on the reading

Topic 5

Are the three children the only claim-makers, with one TRUE claim added so the string is mixed?

The names rule binds; the one risk was every claim keyed "no".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes

Topic 9

Does the typed "circuit" item in the bank sit at medium?

Two of your rules meet on it: the hard tier recalls every coined term, and difficulty rises with the atom's order.

"Circuit" belongs to the first atom, which carries no hard tier, so its typed item is tagged medium.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Medium

Topic 11 · Lesson 2: Say what the design must stay inside

Do the three articles stay at 410, 508 and 482 words, or are Lesson 2 (Say what the design must stay inside) and Lesson 3 (Check the idea before you build) split?

The Grade 4 brief warns above 300 words; Grade 3's approved articles run about 300.

You reviewed these pages on 2 October and the architecture adopts the demo as built; each article has a subtitle or figure every eight idea lines or fewer.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep them as you reviewed them; Olivia's pass will say if a nine-year-old loses the thread

Topic 11

Is the demo folder kept as the record, beside the topic folder?

`grade4/demo_criteria_constraints/` holds the demo as you reviewed it, your triage, and the five video ids; `grade4/topic11_build/` is the course copy, with the bank.

The demo folder is untouched, with one pointer line at the top of its record; deleting it loses the record of what you reviewed.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep both

Topic 13

Does the register say which woods "wood" means, since ebony sinks?

The register's MAT4-002 says every piece of wood floats. That is true of the woods the class meets (pine, oak, cedar, maple, walnut, birch, cork) and false of a few tropical woods; ebony sinks. The reviewer proposed a one-line scope note on the atom, not a change to the lessons.

Built: the lessons and the bank name only woods that float; nothing changes here.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Add the scope line to the register — the lessons stand; the one-line scope note on MAT4-002 (which woods) is a knowledge-graph register edit, logged as owed.

Topic 15

On the drawn display, "45 g" or "45 grams"?

The Grade 3 scale card printed "150 g" and taught "read the number and the g". Every drawn display here prints the symbol, as a real scale does. Every sentence a child reads or hears says "grams".

Built: "g" on the drawn display, "grams" in every sentence.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 16 · Lesson 1: The same water, as a solid, a liquid or a gas

Does Lesson 1 (The same water, as a solid, a liquid or a gas) keep its video, or ship as an article only?

Lesson 1 (The same water, as a solid, a liquid or a gas) says that ice, water and water vapour are one stuff, water, and gives each state a job. Grade 3 Topic 21 already taught melting, freezing and evaporating, so the new teaching here is small. A learner may choose the video or the article.

Built: the video and the article both ship; the video says the sameness over Frankie's half-melted bottle in 148 words.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the video

Topic 17

Should the register's mineral definition carry "natural / not from a living thing" as a scope line only?

The register's atom says minerals are "natural, non-living material". The lesson says "one kind of stuff a rock is made of, the same all the way through", and the accuracy reviewer confirmed that as right for the grade. Grades 3-5 never say "non-living", so the words would sit on the register, not on a page.

Built: no student line; the definition stands as written.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Yes, a scope line on the register only (an atom edit in the knowledge-graph repo; no student text changes) — no student line; the register-only scope line on the mineral atom is a knowledge-graph edit, logged as owed.

Topic 18

Should the atom EAR4-007 say "no layers inside a piece of it" rather than "never has layers"?

The register's wording is "never has layers", and the page keeps it. Some igneous rock does show bands (lava that flowed in sheets; ash that fell in layers).

"No layers inside a piece of it" is true of every rock a child will hold, and it is the register's line to change, not this page's.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Soften the atom — the page keeps the register's words; softening EAR4-007 to "no layers inside a piece of it" is a knowledge-graph register edit, logged as owed.

Topic 19 · Lesson 4: Which rocks can hold water, oil or natural gas

Does the glass block stand in for the brief's brick in Lesson 4 (Which rocks can hold water, oil or natural gas)?

Lesson 4 (Which rocks can hold water, oil or natural gas) pairs a sponge (tiny spaces, holds water) with a thing that has no spaces. A fired brick soaks up water, so the brief's pair would teach a false line.

Built: a glass block beside the sponge.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep

Topic 20 · Lesson 1: Weathering: rock breaks right where it sits

Do Lesson 1 (Weathering: rock breaks right where it sits) and Lesson 4 (Erosion: the pieces are carried away) (weathering; erosion) keep their videos?

Each is a fact with one boundary case, and the article carries it alone. The video's one teaching moment is the headache claim answered aloud over the drawing.

Built: both videos; nine scripts in the batch, not sent.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the videos

Topic 20 · Lesson 2: What does the breaking: roots and ice push the crack wider

Seven lessons rather than six: keep the split?

The five-agent lesson ran to 360 words. It is now two short lessons with a check between them: roots and ice push a crack wider (Lesson 2 (What does the breaking: roots and ice push the crack wider)), then running water, blown sand, and heat and cold wear rock away (Lesson 3 (What does the breaking: water, wind, heat and cold wear the rock away)). Each has its own video, and the summary speaks both rules.

Built: seven lessons.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep seven

Topic 21

Do Lesson 1 and Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers) stay as one article each, at about 350 words?

The Grade 4 ceiling is 300 words; Lesson 1 is 370 (it now carries the count-up line and its subtitle, from the lesson you cut) and Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers) is 349.

In both, a subtitle or a figure sits every three lines or fewer: Lesson 1 carries two recalled sentences, the landing strip, the count-up and two beliefs put right; Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers) carries Grade 3's two sentences, the worked case, its table and the reverse case.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep whole

Topic 21 · Lesson 3: Read the landscape's story from its layers

Decided without asking (7 Oct, evening): the one coining sentence is in Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s first video beat and a recognition item closes Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s quiz.

The video was not yet rendered, so adding the sentence cost nothing; the beat count stays at 150 words; your "fine" on the script's teaching stands. Revert here if you want the article-only version.

You called Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s video fine this morning, so it is unchanged; its rule beat already says "a landscape's story".

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Add the one sentence ("The hill, the river and all the land around them are called a landscape.") to Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s first beat, then one recognition item (a landscape / a layer / a fossil) at the end of Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s quiz — already applied on 7 Oct (the coining sentence in Lesson 3 (Read the landscape's story from its layers)'s first beat and the recognition item); stands.

Topic 22 · Lesson 2: How the shaking spreads out as waves

Do Lesson 2 (How the shaking spreads out as waves) (347 words) and Lesson 3 (Which defense protects better? Test both the same way) (360 words) stand as one article each?

The usual ceiling is about 300 words. Lesson 2 (How the shaking spreads out as waves) carries Topic 8's wave recalled, the slip, the spreading, near and far, the seismograph's line and the cracks; Lesson 3 (Which defense protects better? Test both the same way) carries the fair-test recap the reviewer asked for.

Each has a figure or a subtitle at least every four lines, and a split would make a fourth lesson for an atom taught at recognition level.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as one each

Topic 23 · Lesson 3: The water cycle: four steps in one loop

Does Lesson 3 (The water cycle: four steps in one loop) (317 words) stand as one article?

The usual ceiling is about 300 words. Lesson 3 (The water cycle: four steps in one loop) carries the three Grade 3 sentences word for word plus Topic 16's, which the brief asked for, with a figure or subtitle at least every four lines.

Built: one article; one dew line was cut (its caption carries it).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep as one

Topic 24

Does Lesson 5's article stand at 413 words?

The usual ceiling is about 300. Lesson 5 carries the five numbered build steps, what happens in the sun, and the solid / liquid / gas labelling.

A routine split by a check loses its order; a figure or subtitle sits at least every six lines.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it whole

Topic 24

Should Topic 23's loop figure, borrowed for Lesson 3's page, have its three top chips spread out?

Lesson 3 recalls the water cycle with Topic 23's own drawing, unchanged, so one depiction serves both topics.

Its three chips along the top (THE SUN'S LIGHT, CARRIES ENERGY, CONDENSATION) sit tightly but do not overlap.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it; a note goes to Topic 23's author — left as is; the note to Topic 23 is written in Topic 23's build record (the three top chips sit tightly but do not overlap; spread them in the next picture pass if Topic 23 is reopened).

Topic 24

Is "connected to all Earth's water" right, or should it read "all of Earth's water"?

Lesson 4's rule ends "so the ocean is connected to all Earth's water". The reviewer's wording had "all of"; one word was cut so the summary video stays at 175 spoken words.

The same rule says "plants on land" rather than "on the land" for the same reason.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the shorter forms

Topic 25

Does "the day that does not fit" stand as its own lesson, Lesson 7?

The register lists SR4-012 (a result that does not fit the rest) as its own step; the first draft taught it inside the capstone, as the 28-degree afternoon, and the capstone article ran to 375 words.

The guidance review asked for the split, and v2 built it: Lesson 6 (The day that does not fit) reads the climate off five years, then a quiz, then Lesson 7 checks the odd day and sets it aside.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Lesson 7 as its own lesson

Topic 25

Do the two-place graphs stay in one colour per quantity?

The first draft drew Duluth pale blue and Austin tan on every side-by-side graph, so the eye separated the two towns at once.

Both reviews found the same fault: the tan graph had fewer in eight of nine pairs, so the colour predicted the key.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): One colour per quantity

Topic 25

Do the graphs children build number every line, while the graphs they only read number every ten?

Olivia's Grade 3 rule for a graph the child draws is a number beside every line; the built graphs here run 0 to 12 and do that.

The temperature graphs the child only reads run 0 to 80 with a line every 2 degrees, and a number at every ten lines, as Grade 3 taught reading between numbered lines.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the split

Topic 25 · Lesson 3: Make a bar graph: the lines, then the bars

Does the seven-lesson shape stand, two lessons split into four?

The guidance review found Lesson 3 (Make a bar graph: the lines, then the bars) (390 words) and Lesson 5 (Read the climate off the records) (375 words) each doing two jobs; v2 split Lesson 3 (Make a bar graph: the lines, then the bars) into the title-and-labels lesson and the lines-then-bars lesson, and Lesson 5 (Read the climate off the records) into reading the climate and the odd day, each with its own video, rule card and quiz.

Every article now sits under about 300 words except Lesson 1 (311) and Lesson 2 (Make a bar graph: the title and the two labels) (346, a six-card example sequence).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep seven

Topic 26

Do four lessons stand, where the first draft had three?

The first draft's third lesson ran to 392 words: it taught the two questions, ran them on three more scenes, then taught "say the acting part first".

The guidance review asked for the split, and v2 built Lesson 3 (the two questions, 284 words) and Lesson 4 (more interactions and the order, 272 words), each with its own video, quiz and headache (Louis and Josie say the sand's interaction the two ways round).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep four

Topic 26

Does PP-47 keep the rain-and-gravel scene instead of the reviewer's Oregon cliff?

PP-47 is the hard chain item: the part changed in step one does the acting in step two.

The reviewer proposed an Oregon sea cliff's rocks falling into the sea; that is PR-10's scene word for word (waves wear away a sea cliff in Oregon), so a child meets it twice.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the gravel

Topic 26

Does the map legend stay as a strip along the bottom of every map?

The legend was a corner box whose words read at about 9 px on a phone; the look-up floor is 13 px. A corner box large enough for 13 px collided with a hill, a town, a lake or the river on 12 of the 14 maps.

v3 draws the legend as a strip under the land on every map, and the lesson now says "the box along the bottom of the map says what each color and shape stands for". Many printed maps put the legend in a corner, and two practice items still describe one that does.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the strip

Topic 27 · Lesson 1: How people get electricity from the wind

Do the three long articles stand as one lesson each?

Lesson 1 (How people get electricity from the wind) runs to 356 words, Lesson 2 (How people get electricity from moving water) to 393 and Lesson 4 (How people get energy from plants: wood to burn and food to eat) to 381; the line for a Grade 4 article is about 300.

Each has a subtitle or a figure every four idea lines or fewer, and each extra section feeds an item (the wire back to the tower; the old mill; the shut pipe; the reservoir; the building that burns wood chips).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep them

Topic 27

Do the item cards keep their phone layout?

The figure review measured the card text at 6 px on a phone and found the carrier chip sitting on a box corner on every card.

v2 rebuilt the one card drawer: the frame shrank from 560 to 424 units and the text grew to 17, so a child on a 360 px phone reads 13 px letters; the chips sit above the boxes; every item-card box is the same pale grey, so no tint whispers the answer; where the chip is the thing asked, its arrow is grey. Topics 34 and 35 import a compact form of the same drawer.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the layout

Topic 28 · Lesson 1: Coal: the black rock that burns

Does the four-lesson shape stand, with Lesson 1 (Coal: the black rock that burns) and Lesson 2 (Oil: the thick dark liquid pumped up from deep rock) at about 380 words each?

The first draft had three lessons; Lesson 3 (Natural gas: the gas piped from deep rock to the stove) ran to 418 words because it also closed the topic.

The review asked for a split, and v2 built it: Lesson 3 (Natural gas: the gas piped from deep rock to the stove) (natural gas, 356 words) and a 208-word capstone, Lesson 4 (Three fuels from under the ground) "Three fuels from under the ground", with a six-item quiz between.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep four lessons; Lesson 1 (Coal: the black rock that burns) and Lesson 2 (Oil: the thick dark liquid pumped up from deep rock) stand

Topic 28

Does Joy stay as the second girl's name?

The pool gave this topic Maria, Mariana and Micah. The review and two blind readers read Maria and Mariana as one child; v2 made her Lara; the third reader read Maria and Lara as a pair (both end "-ara").

Joy is outside the pool, free in the Grade 3 register and used by no other topic.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Joy

Topic 29 · Lesson 2: Used up quicker than nature renews them: coal, oil and natural gas

Do Lesson 2 (Used up quicker than nature renews them: coal, oil and natural gas) (372 words) and Lesson 5 (Using any energy resource changes the land, the air or the water) (376 words) stand as one article each?

Lesson 2 (Used up quicker than nature renews them: coal, oil and natural gas) carries coal, oil and natural gas with their origins in Topic 28's words, the millions-of-years bridge and the one "fossil fuels" line; its longest run of idea lines without a subtitle or figure is four.

Lesson 5 (Using any energy resource changes the land, the air or the water) names the mark of all seven resources, one card each; its longest run is three.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep both whole

Topic 29 · Lesson 3: Sort the seven resources: renewable or nonrenewable?

Does the six-lesson shape stand, after the sort lesson was split?

The first draft had five lessons; the sort lesson ran to 368 words with two runs of six idea lines.

The review split it: Lesson 3 (Sort the seven resources: renewable or nonrenewable?) sorts the seven with four drawn cards as its quiz, and Lesson 4 (Two things that are not energy resources) "Two things that are not energy resources" takes the recycled bottle and electricity with its own video and a seven-item quiz.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep six

Topic 29

Does Jake stay as the third child's name?

The pool gave this topic Monica, Morgan and Nathan. Two blind readers read Monica and Morgan as one child.

Casey was the first free name, but Topic 30's review the same day took it; Jake is free in the Grade 3 register and used by no other topic.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Jake

Topic 30 · Lesson 2: Longer days in summer, shorter days in winter

Does Lesson 2 (Longer days in summer, shorter days in winter) stand as one article at 385 words?

It carries two faces of one atom: the two paths over the schoolyard, and the year's records as a table and a graph. Both feed items.

Its longest run without a subtitle or figure is six idea lines; the brief allows an article over 300 words for a reason like this.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it as one article; a split would make a fifth lesson for a fact atom

Topic 30

Does Wade stay as the third child's name?

The pool gave this topic Paige and Parker. Both blind readers read the two P-names as one child on the claim items.

The review suggested Casey; the fix pass chose Wade, which is free across the course, and updated the pool's row 30.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Wade

Topic 31 · Lesson 4: Different stars in different seasons

Is Lesson 4 (Different stars in different seasons)'s seven-item quiz enough for a one-fact lesson?

Lesson 4 (Different stars in different seasons) teaches one seasonal fact. Its quiz has a Grade 3 recall, four fluency and apply items, one reason item and two claims.

The checker's target is about ten; the honest items are used up, and more would be obvious ones.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Seven is fine

Topic 31

Does Andre stay as the boy's name, in place of Pedro?

The pool gave this topic Paul, Pedro and Phoebe; two blind readers read Paul and Pedro as one child in a run of three P-names.

Andre is free in the register and used by no other topic; the names pool's row 31 is updated.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Andre

Topic 32 · Lesson 5: Why the Moon's shape seems to change

Does Lesson 5 (Why the Moon's shape seems to change) stay whole at 358 words?

The why lesson carries the lit ball, the view from above, three "what we see" steps, Riley's ball and the rule, with eight figures and five subtitles.

The review trimmed it from 388 words by cutting the orbit recap and folding two lines; a subtitle or figure sits every five idea lines or fewer.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep it whole; a split by a check breaks the chain

Topic 33 · Lesson 1: Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do

Does Lesson 1 (Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do) stand as one lesson on three parts, at 365 words?

You flagged a lesson on several organs as a bite-sized risk. This one teaches three parts (the heart, the two lungs, the stomach), each with its own subtitle, its own picture and its own row of the table, with a subtitle or figure every six lines or fewer.

The review asked for a trim and got one (three untested lines cut, 394 to 365 words); a split would give the stomach a lesson of its own with a thin quiz.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep one lesson

Topic 33 · Lesson 1: Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do

Does the Living things opening video stand as written?

It is 90 spoken words, one backyard at sunset: a dog, an oak, a hummingbird, a girl. It teaches nothing and coins nothing; it names the six topics in a child's words ("where a puppy gets its looks", "who eats whom") and ends on a ready line and the poll.

The review found one beat that taught Lesson 1 (Inside the body: what the heart, the lungs and the stomach do)'s point, and it now says only "All of them are alive, and that is what we look at next."

Decided (8 Oct 2026): It stands

Topic 33

Do Roman, Dean and Victor stand as the three children?

The pool gave this topic Roman, Ruben and Ryan. Two blind readers read them as three five-letter R-names a nine-year-old would blur; Ruben became Dean. The third reader then read Roman and Ryan, one initial and one length, as a blur risk; Ryan became Victor.

Both new names are outside the pool, free in the Grade 3 register and used by no other Grade 3 or Grade 4 content.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Roman, Dean and Victor

Topic 34

Does every energy chain stay as Topic 27's card, in its compact form?

Topic 27 drew "the Sun → LIGHT → the corn plant grows" as a card of boxes and orange arrows with a chip on each arrow.

This topic's eight chains (the Sun → grass → rabbit; the Sun → grass → cow → Dora's milk; the Sun → seeds → mouse → owl, and five item chains) are that same card, imported, with its spacing tightened so a four-box chain reads at 20 px on a phone.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the import; one drawing for energy chains across Grade 4

Topic 34

Do Sally, Wendy and Dora stay as the three children?

The pool gave this topic Sally, Scarlett and Selena. Two blind readers heard Sally and Selena as one child; the third reader read Sally and Scarlett as one.

Selena became Dora after the first read, and Scarlett became Wendy after the third; Wendy is in no Grade 3 or Grade 4 file and no review note.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Sally, Wendy and Dora

Topic 35

Does Troy stay as the third child's name?

The pool gave this topic Seth, Simon and Sloane. A blind reader read "Simon says…" as the game, and three S-names blurred.

Troy is free in every course file and in the register (Jake was tried first and taken by Topic 29 within the hour).

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Troy

Topic 35

Do the webs stand as upright drawings sized for a phone?

The figure review measured the first web on a phone: names at 6.5 px, the legend at 5.5 px, the mushroom a brown smudge.

Every web is now an upright 360 by 420 frame with names at 17 px and the legend on two lines at 13 px; no arrow crosses another; on a desktop it shows at 480 px wide so it does not fill the column.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the upright webs

Topic 36

Does Paula's dog stay unnamed?

The dog runs through all five lessons: floppy ears and a brown coat from its mother, strong legs from running, fetching and sitting because Paula taught it. It is "Paula's dog" in about forty places.

The names rule allows only the row's four names.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Leave it unnamed

Topic 36

Do the eleven item cards stay as fact rows the student sorts?

An item card is a small drawn table for one animal or plant: the trait, when it was first seen, what its parents have, what happened to it. The first version printed the two sorting questions already answered (yes / no / partly), so the item was card-reading.

v2 made every row a fact and the student does the sort; both readers and the figure review asked for this. The cards read at 15-px type on a phone.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep the fact rows

Topic 36

Do Tina and Paula stand as the renamed children?

The pool gave this topic Sonia, Stella and Sylvia. Two blind readers read the three S-names as one child; v2 made Stella Tina. Reader C then read Sonia and Sylvia as a pair (one letter, one ending).

Paula is free in the course register and used by no Grade 3 or Grade 4 content; the pool row is updated.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Tina and Paula

Topic 37 · Lesson 5: Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle

Does Lesson 5 (Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle) stand at 342 words, trimmed rather than split?

The review asked whether Lesson 5 (Complete change or gradual growth? Sort the life cycle) should be split; v2 cut the chicken case and a repeated closing line instead (372 → 342).

Lesson 1 (How pollen moves from flower to flower: pollination) (317), Lesson 2 (When pollen arrives, the flower can make seeds) (307) and Lesson 4 (What a seed needs to start growing: germination) (309) sit just over the 300 mark; every article has a subtitle or figure at least every seven lines.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep one article each

Topic 37

Does Zoey stay as the third child's name?

The pool gave this topic Tamara, Tatum and Theodore. Two blind readers read Tamara and Tatum as one child on the same page.

Zoey is used by no other topic in Grades 3 or 4, and the pool row now reads Tamara, Zoey, Theodore.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Zoey

Topic 38

Does Lesson 4 stand as one lesson, with a check between its two parts?

Lesson 4 runs to 519 words: it coins "adapted", follows three kinds through one change, and then names the belief that a kind can change by trying.

The register asks for "adapted" to be said before any prediction, so the coin and the three kinds sit together. Two quiz items now sit inside the article, after the three kinds and before the belief, so the student checks the first part before reading the second.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep one lesson, with the check between

Topic 38

Do you want the check inside an article used elsewhere on the site?

Until now a young article over 300 words was split into two lessons with a quiz between. For Lesson 4 the site learned a new step: a lesson's own quiz items drawn inside the article, so one page can carry two parts and a check.

It is new on this site and lives in the shared page builder, so any Grade 3 or Grade 4 lesson could use it.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Use it where an article's two parts need each other on one page; keep splitting otherwise

Topic 38

Does Kayla stay as the renamed girl?

The pool gave this topic Tori, Travis and Valeria. Two blind readers read Tori and Travis as one child, and Tori was wrong in every claim she made.

Kayla is free course-wide, starts with a different letter, and now makes the TRUE claim in Lesson 2. Travis, who was wrong in seven of eight lines, now makes a TRUE claim in Lesson 1 too.

Decided (8 Oct 2026): Keep Kayla