Skill: write-like-james @ cb79e2e · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script @ cb79e2e

Topic 29 "The Sun" — your read (29 September 2026)

The first Space topic of the Earth & Space strand. Three short lessons: the Sun is a huge ball of glowing gas that makes its own light (not rock, not a campfire); the Sun is a star, the same kind of thing as the stars in the night sky; the Sun's light carries energy to Earth, so it is the main source of Earth's light and warmth. Written by the author as you, then a non-author review (21 findings, 20 applied, one declined and named below), then a cold read of every changed item (9 of 9 keys agreed). Reply by number.

The three that unblock the bank

1. Do the nine question types stand, with both hard types as text entry?

Three fact atoms give few honest moves, so the sheet stops at nine (your ceiling is ten). Nothing in this topic is counted or read off a scale, so a numeric item would be forced; the two hard types are typed words — the one daytime thing that is the same kind of thing as the night-time stars (Sun), and the kind of matter the Sun is made of (gas).

The reviewer found one exemplar that was Topic 15's attached question with a word changed; it and four others were re-instanced and cold-read.

Recommendation: approve as written. The nine types, coverage, the design-move inventory

Approve all / strike these / edit these

2. May this topic say, three times and without explaining, that the stars are far away?

L01 says once "It looks small only because it is far, far away." L02 says "The other stars are far, far away" and "The Sun is the star closest to Earth."

Why far things look like dots, and why the Sun looks bigger and brighter than every other star, are Topic 30's two atoms; this topic states the distance and stops. Topic 30's draft opens on these sentences as things the student has already heard.

Recommendation: keep all three — the reviewer agrees, and one sentence that DID state Topic 30's rule (in a feedback line) has been cut.

Keep / cut L01's line / cut all three

3. Is the safety line right in two places — the intro video and L01's article?

"Never look straight at the Sun. Its light is far too bright for your eyes." A student who chooses the video over the article never met it when it sat in L01's article alone, and L01's script is at its 150-word cap. It is now a beat of the intro video (an instruction, so the intro still teaches nothing) and its own line straight after L01's headache. L02 and L03 do not repeat it.

Recommendation: two places, as built.

Two places / L01 only / every lesson

The lessons

4. L01 The Sun is a huge ball of glowing gas — Jax on the beach at sunrise: what is the Sun, really? It looks coin-sized only because it is far away; drawn to size, Earth is a dot, and more than a hundred Earths fit across the Sun (109, drawn as 109 dots). It is not rock, like Earth. It is gas, "a kind of matter like the air" (Topic 20's words), so hot that it glows — a stove ring glowing red is the everyday glowing-hot thing (kept, on the reviewer's view and mine). It is not a campfire: a campfire burns wood and needs air, the Sun has neither. Nothing shines light onto the Sun; the Moon is lit, the Sun makes its own light. Quiz: on fire? (no), coin-sized? (no), the Moon lights it? (no), what it is made of, typed "gas" last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

5. L02 The Sun is a star — the strand's shortest lesson, as you asked on 25 Sep. Cassia under a clear night sky: what are those points of light? Every one is a star: a huge ball of glowing gas that makes its own light — exactly what the Sun is. So the Sun is a star, the same kind of thing. Up close, a night-time star would look like our Sun; the Sun is the star closest to Earth. Quiz: "not a star because stars are dots" (no), the Moon is a star? (no), which of these is a star, the term by recall last. Article · quiz Fine / say where

6. L03 The Sun's light carries energy to Earth — Piet's hot slide at noon; nobody touched it. The Sun's light travels in straight lines and lands on the slide; light carries energy, so the slide warms up (Topic 15's sentence, word for word). It lands on the sand, the sea, the grass, you. A table of four warm or bright things: two warmed by the Sun's light, cocoa by the stove, a lamp by electricity along the wire — so the Sun is the MAIN source, not the only one. At night the Sun is not in our sky and the slide cools (no turning Earth — that is Topic 31's); with no Sun at all the ground would stay dark and frozen. Quiz: where a warm path's energy came from, soup on the stove (not the Sun), "every warm thing was warmed by the Sun" (no), typed "Sun" last. Article · quiz Fine / say where

Applied without asking

Hard bank items typed; every attached question stands alone with its own drawing (L03's on the video's own sand, never Topic 15's rock); no option bundles a verdict with a reason; every stem a positive question; scene changes spoken with "let's"; the intro ends on a ready line and a poll and names no lesson; three questions on the summary, each on a fresh drawing; light CARRIES energy in every sentence, never "a form of energy"; the Moon is lit, never a source (the night figure lost its Moon for that reason); day and night only as "the Sun is not in our sky"; "the Sun is on fire" only ever as a child's claim the key corrects; plants and food chains left to the Life strand; colour, one Sun drawing without a face everywhere, five photos and one cartoon for David; twenty-three student names, every one checked against every other topic and fifteen renamed. Declined from the review, for your eye: softening the register's own "Nothing shines light onto the Sun" to "does not need light from anything else" — the register's words stand unless you want them softer.

Also on the site

Topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the blueprint's decisions · the type sheet

After you answer

1 → a bank of about fifty from the approved types, a second cold read of the whole topic, the hand-over folder for David. 2 → Topic 30 keeps or loses its "already heard" opening. Register notes (SPA3-001, 007, 002 — and the XREF that still says "light, heat as forms") → the knowledge-graph repo.