Skill: write-like-james @ dea5d9e · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script @ dea5d9e

Topic 36 "Eggs, body parts and senses" — your read (29 September 2026)

The Life strand's fifth topic. Three lessons, one atom each: how baby animals begin (eggs, or born alive); the job each body part does for its animal; an animal senses first, then responds. Each lesson opens on a child's real question about a surprising case — a heap of eggs in a pet python's tank ("only birds lay eggs"); a duck's wide flat foot beside a hen's thin one; a cat asleep on the sofa that comes running when the cupboard clicks in the kitchen — and runs the surprising members first: a python, a toad, a goldfish and a butterfly lay eggs before the hen; a dolphin and a bat are born alive before the cow; a snake smells with its tongue and a snail feels with a feeler before the rabbit sees the hawk. Read by the author as you, then a non-author review (33 findings — 6 blocks, 10 fixes, 17 suggestions — every one applied or answered), then a cold read of every changed item (29 of 29 keys agreed; the reader's nine flags are all applied — the eight items they touched are re-cut for a second read). Reply by number.

The three that unblock the bank

1. Do the nine question types stand, with the typed hard tier?

Your night ruling is applied: hard is typed — a pig that digs straight down to a mushroom buried under the soil, where nothing can be seen (type the body part it sensed with: "nose"), and baby lizards, fish and birds that hatch out (type the word for such an animal: "egg-layer"). Easy and medium are four-option MCQs and are the bulk. Every atom is tested alone and in a pair; every exemplar is an animal and a scene the topic uses nowhere else (a zebra among an iguana, a pigeon and a tuna, four groups named; an octopus pulling a shell open; a quail hearing a crow's caw; a hamster among a python, a swan and a clownfish, no groups named; a baby born alive → which group; a mole's paws; a walrus's whiskers feeling for clams in the dark). The review found three of the first sheet's exemplars were quiz items renamed and one used two lesson animals; all four are replaced. Two questions inside this one: type 1 now has two forms — the groups named in brackets tests the egg rule alone; the groups not named makes the student place each animal first, so it is a pair with Topic 35 — say if you want only one; and the reviewer proposed a ninth type on the lesson's boundary case (a llama grazes while a tractor starts far over the hill, too far to be heard, seen or smelled — what does the llama do? → it keeps grazing), written for your call. The nine types, coverage, the design-move inventory

Approve all / strike type 9 / keep one form of type 1 / edit these

2. Is "senses" coined on the body parts, not on the five senses?

L03 says: "When an animal notices something around it with its eyes, ears, nose, tongue, skin or feelers, we say it senses it." The five sense-words (sight, hearing, smell, taste, touch) are never named; the quiz asks "which body part did it sense with?" — its ears, its eyes, its whiskers. The reviewer added "feelers" so the lesson's own snail fits the rule; whiskers are long hairs in the skin, said once in the rat item.

Recommendation: yes — a body part is a thing an eight-year-old can point at; the sense-words can arrive with the brain step in Grade 4 (LIF4-003).

Yes / name the five senses too

3. Do the L01 quiz stems keep the animal's group?

Every L01 quiz item names the animal AND its group ("A gecko is a reptile. How does a gecko make more geckos?"), so the item is one step: group → rule. Without the group the student must also place the animal — Topic 35's skill — and the item becomes a pair. The bank tests both forms (question 1).

Recommendation: yes — the quiz drills the rule; the bank tests it as the state tests will.

Yes / drop the groups / groups in some items only

The lessons

4. L01 Egg-layers, or babies born alive — Fiorella's uncle keeps a pet python, and one morning there is a heap of eggs in its tank. "Only birds lay eggs," says Fiorella. Every living thing makes more of its own kind, and animals do it in one of two ways. The python mother laid the eggs; inside each a baby grows, then breaks the shell and hatches — an animal that lays eggs is an egg-layer. A toad lays eggs in the pond and tadpoles hatch out; a goldfish; a butterfly on a leaf; and the hen last. Then the sea: a dolphin mother lays no eggs, her baby is born alive and swims beside her — babies born alive are live young; a bat's baby clings to her fur; a cow's calf. The rule: birds, reptiles, amphibians, fish and insects lay eggs; mammals give birth to live young. A python is a reptile, so Fiorella was not right. Quiz: a parrot (a bird), a gecko, a horse, a manatee in the river, a trout, a giraffe, a ladybug — eggs or live young; which of three gives birth (a goat); which lays eggs (an alligator); Nikolai says a fish cannot lay eggs (no); Orsolya says a newt lays eggs (yes); "egg-layer" typed last. The platypus stays out (Topic 35's seam ruling — the register's note says how it would come in). Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

5. L02 Body parts do jobs that help the animal survive — Griffin feeds the ducks at the pond; a hen pecks beside him. The duck's foot is wide and flat, with skin between the toes; the hen's is thin. Why so different? The duck lives on the pond: its webbed foot pushes the water like a paddle, so the duck swims about the pond where it lives. The hen finds her seeds on the ground: her thin toes grip and scratch them up, so she gets her food. Two feet, two different jobs. To survive means to stay alive; every body part does a job that helps its animal survive. A polar bear's thick fur keeps the warmth in; a woodpecker's sharp beak chips into wood where insects live; a hedgehog's spines stop a fox biting it; a camel's wide feet do not sink in the sand. The rule names the four jobs: getting food, staying safe, keeping warm or cool, moving about where it lives. Quiz: a frog's sticky tongue, a crab's shell against a gull, a musk ox's coat, a kangaroo's legs, an eagle's claws, a porcupine's quills — which job; which part helps a beaver cut trees, an arctic fox keep warm; Valerio's gibbon arms (yes), Quilla's moose legs keep it warm (no); "survive" typed last. One thing to know: the reviewer read the duck's foot as moving about, not getting food, and the coordinator ruled it so — the pair now shows two different jobs, which is the cleaner minimal difference. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

6. L03 Animals sense, then respond — Clemency's cat is asleep on the sofa; in the kitchen the cupboard clicks; the cat's ears twitch and it runs to the kitchen. How did it know? The click travels through the air to the cat's ears (Topic 12's line): the cat senses it. Then it runs, because of what it sensed: it responds. First senses, then responds. Now the cat far down the garden, the click too quiet to reach it: no sensing, no response — it sleeps on. A snake smells a mouse with its tongue, then slides toward it; a snail feels a leaf brush its feeler, then pulls its feelers in; light from a hawk reaches a rabbit's eyes (Topic 13's line), then it runs to its burrow. Quiz: no light in a cave, can the bear see the fish (no — Topic 13 recalled); a shark's nose, a moth's eyes, a rat's whiskers; the owl's swoop, the dog's bark and the chameleon's tongue as responses; Maxine's grazing deer with nothing to sense (no); a skunk asleep as a cricket passes without a sound or a smell (no response); Wilfrid's donkey heard first, then galloped (yes); "senses" and "responds" typed last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

Applied without asking

Hard bank items typed; every attached question stands alone with its own photo (a lizard on a rock, a giraffe at a tree, a fox in the snow; the summary's tortoise, elephant and sparrow); no option bundles a verdict with a reason and every claim is bare yes / no, each claim-maker once; every stem a positive question; the intro (baby turtles racing for the sea, a newborn foal, an owl's eyes, a beaver's teeth, a dog at the door before anyone knocks) coins nothing, names no lesson's animal, ends on a ready line and a poll; the summary closes its dog (it heard footsteps on the path) and speaks every rule as written; scene changes spoken with "let's", every new example opened with "Now" or "Next"; three questions on the summary; colour, and no drawn people (three cartoons and 22 photos briefed for David; the sort table, the jobs table and the sense → respond cards are drawings); every tick and cross sits under its drawn question ("Lays eggs?"); surprising members first; the walrus's tusks (a false fact in the first draft's summary question) replaced by an elephant's ears letting heat out — the topic's one keeping-cool case; "keeping warm or cool" is the option word everywhere the rule says it; Topic 35's seam — its group sentences used as taught, no rattlesnake, garter snake, boa or adder anywhere as an egg-layer, the platypus out, no animal shared as a scene (the python's eggs are in a pet's tank at Fiorella's uncle's house); Topics 12 and 13 quoted in their own words; no lesson animal in any item; one animal, one item; ten student names owned by this topic alone (one renamed after Topic 38 took it); the register notes for LIF3-013, 020, 027 and 028 wait in ATOM_PROPOSALS_G3T36.md for your word.

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, the hand-over folder for David. 2 and 3 → nothing changes, or the L03 coin and the L01 stems are rewritten as you say. Register notes → the knowledge-graph repo.