Skill: write-like-james @ a5ff054 · typed hard types: write-mcqs @ a5ff054

Topic 16 "Describe it, sort it" — your read (28 September 2026, night)

The Matter strand's opener: six lessons, two words coined (observation, property), nothing said about matter yet. Read by the author as you, then a non-author review (37 findings, all applied or answered) and a cold read of every changed item (24 of 24 keys agreed, both typed answers matched). Reply by number.

The two that unblock the bank

1. Do you approve the new atom, "Choose a property to sort by"?

Olivia asked that sorting be taught with the property GIVEN first, then CHOSEN. Those are two skills a child passes and fails separately: putting buttons into a red pile and a blue pile when told "by color", against looking at six white shells and working out that color cannot sort them, so size must.

The choosing step has its own trap — trying to sort by a property every object shares, and getting one group — and its own bank type.

Recommendation: approve, as MAT3-P01 between MAT3-002 and MAT3-003 (behaviour: "sort them by it into two or more groups"). The proposal Approve / fold back into MAT3-002 as two parts of one lesson

2. Do the nine question types stand, with the two typed hard types?

Your 28 Sep night ruling is applied without asking: the hard end of the bank is text entry, easy and medium are four-option MCQs (one is a reorder). Neither typed stem prints an accepted word:

• Wilf is in the next room with the door shut. He hears a loud bang and says, "There was a loud bang." What kind of sentence is that? Type the word. — accepts observation / an observation. Hard because the coin is recalled, not picked, on a heard case.
• Casper wants to put five white shells in a line from least to most. Some shells are big and some are small. Which property can he use? Type the property. — accepts size / their size / the size / its size. Hard because two ideas join (a line needs a least and a most; the shared colour gives none) and the word is worked out from the shells.

Recommendation: approve all nine; the bank of about fifty is generated from them, easy-heavy, with the typed share at the hard end. The nine types, ten exemplars, coverage table Approve all / strike these / edit these

Applied without asking: hard items typed (S26); no stem opens "In the video" — every attached question states or draws its scene (S27); colour in figures; three questions on the summary; a reorder item for ranking; bare yes/no claims; positive stems; contractions and varied headache openers; the taste line kept; "a color has no least and no most" kept with "lighter and darker is a different property".

The lessons

3. L01 Observe with more than your eyes — the same can of soda noticed four ways, ears first with your eyes shut; "Something you noticed is called an observation." Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

4. L02 Observation or idea about it? — Olivia's hard one, taught in pairs on one scene: "The puddle is smaller than this morning" (she saw it) against "The water soaked into the ground" (nobody saw it); then a plate and a dog; then a bark heard through a fence. "An idea about it is something you think is true, but did not observe." The one soft edge a reviewer found and we kept: "a dog barked" counts as heard, not worked out. Article · quiz Fine / say where / make the heard sentences name only the sound

5. L03 Describe an object by its properties — Olivia's sentence coins it: "A property is something you can say about an object: its color, its shape, its size, or how it feels." Then a pebble and a leaf (photos), and the boundary: where it is, whose it is and where it came from are not properties; "how long it is — its length — is part of its size". "Texture" and "hardness" are not coined (the everyday words carry it; a grade-5 line can add them if the state tests need the words). Article · quiz Fine / say where / coin texture here

6. L04 Sort objects by one property — eight buttons, red and blue, big and small: sorted by color, one blue button in the red group (not sorted), then the same buttons sorted by size. Article · quiz Fine / say where

7. L05 Which property can sort these? — the proposed atom: six white shells, color gives one group, size gives two; blue socks of one length sorted by how they feel; green leaves of one size by shape. Article · quiz Fine / say where

8. L06 Put objects in order by a property — pencils shortest to longest, cups, stones by feel; the boundary: three cups red, blue, yellow cannot go in order by color; sorting makes groups, ordering makes a line. Reorder items in the quiz. Article · quiz Fine / say where

Also on the site

Intro (the mystery bag) and poll · mixed practice · summary and three questions · people, hands and the dog are placeholders until David's pipeline draws them from the briefs; the pebble and the leaf are photo slots.

After you answer

1 → the coordinator adds MAT3-P01 to the register and renames L05's atom. 2 → bank of about 50 from the approved types, blind read, hand-over folder for David.