Skill: course-build → write-video-script, write-lesson, write-mcqs, review-figures, sentence-atomise, vault-sync @ fb2b865
James's notes on Topic 36 — triage (2 October 2026)
Source: reviews/james/NOTES_G3T36_2026-10-02.md. Six notes (the intro, L01–L03, the summary). None of this topic's videos exists, so every change is a text edit; nothing is committed.
In plain words
Fiorella is Lucy (a common US name the names register shows nowhere else in the course). The snake is "a snake" in every student line; the picture briefs keep the corn snake for the photo. "Is she right? No, the snake laid them." The reference-back beat is gone. "A dolphin does not lay eggs." L02 no longer defines "survive" — the sentence is deleted from the forest, article, script, lexicon and summary, and since nothing is coined the two "survive" term items go too. L03 says the thing: "it runs to the cupboard", "the cat hears the click", "slides toward the mouse", "It does not sense the click, so it does not respond". The summary: "snake", "The dolphin, the bat and the cow all give birth to live young", "Next, let's look at body parts / senses", "When the cat cannot sense the click, it sleeps on."
The table
| his note (verbatim) | action | where |
|---|---|---|
| "great intro" | no change | — |
| "'Fiorella' - lol you can use a more common name every now and again!" | applied: Lucy (build_tools_names.py: unique to topic36; 0 hits for Lucy elsewhere) in headache, article, caption, script, blurb, cartoon alt and brief | content/G3T36_lessons.py L01; G3T36.py; figures.py |
| "'Is she right? The snake laid them.' - remember the general rule - if you ask a question you must answer it: No, the snake laid them. This should be a general rule, incorporated into a skill in the vault" | applied: "No, the snake laid them." Vault: Narration names the actor; a wrong drawing is called wrong.md, 2026-10-02 refinement (the next sentence opens with the verdict; a WARN check proposed); lines in write-video-script, write-lesson, sentence-atomise | L01 script; vault |
| "'corn snake' - noone knows what that is - just say snake." | applied in every student line (headache, forest, article, captions, script, summary, the egg table's row label and the two table briefs' row names); the photo and cartoon briefs keep "corn snake" for the picture | L01; G3T36.py; figures.py |
| "'A corn snake is a reptile, so it laid the eggs. Fiorella wasn't right.' - this reference back to the start is unecesarry - delete" | applied: script beat deleted | L01 script |
| "'A dolphin lays no eggs:' --> a dolphin does not lay eggs is much better wording" | applied in script, forest and article (the bat and the cow too) | L01 |
| "to survive means to stay alive. this sentence comes out of nowhere with no context. and i think kids know survive by this age, so just delete the sentence" | applied: deleted from L02's forest, article (the "What survive means" subtitle becomes "Jobs that keep the animal alive"), script and the lexicon; terms["survive"] and its coined_at entries removed; the recognition and typed "survive" items in L02's quiz and the practice set removed (nothing is coined, so nothing is tested) | L02; G3T36.py |
| "'The cat's ears twitch, and it runs there' - where? to the cupboard - be specific" | applied | L03 script beat 1 |
| "'it hears it' - what hears what? the cat hears the click - you should never have a sentence where a word like it is used to mean two different things --> general rule" | applied: "so the cat hears the click" (script and article). Vault: Say the specific thing, 2026-10-02 section | L03; vault |
| "'then slides toward it.' same here - say the noun" | applied: "then slides toward the mouse" | L03 script |
| "'No sensing, so no response:' use verbs! - it doesn't sense the click, so it doesn't respond" | applied: script "It does not sense the click, so it does not respond."; article "The cat does not sense the click, so it does not respond. It sleeps on."; the lexicon's verbless "No sensing, no response." becomes "When an animal does not sense something, it does not respond to it."; the skunk and deer fb/why lines; the rule card's last line "If it does not sense, it does not respond." (rendered and opened: fits the box) | L03; G3T36.py; figures.py |
| summary: "just say snake" / "The dolphin, the bat and the cow. -- where is the verb??" / "Next, body parts. To survive means to stay alive. - non-sequitur… delete the survive sentence" / "a verb would be fine, e.g. Next, let's look at sense" / "'When the click cannot reach the cat,' -- the key thing you've missed is 'when the cat cannot sense the click, it sleeps on'" | applied, all five; the summary re-cut 218 → 171 words (the duck's foot example and the dog-at-the-door line cut; every lexicon sentence kept) | G3T36.py summary |
Judgements
- L03's script went to 160 words with the nouns spelled out and is 147 now ("We say it responds" folded into "it responds"; "Sense first, respond after" cut; the garden beat shortened).
- Checker: 0 FAIL, 66 WARN. Names tool: Lucy only in topic36. Page rebuilt.