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

Topic 37 "How plants make new plants" — your read (29 September 2026)

The Life strand's sixth topic. Four lessons, one atom each: what a seed is; what a spore is; the one question that sorts every plant (does it ever make flowers or cones?); and what the flower does. Each lesson opens on a child's real question about a surprising case — a pine cone's winged seed smaller than a fingernail that becomes a tree; a fern that has never made a flower yet has baby ferns all round it; a garden where some plants make seeds and some make spores; an apple tree that is all flowers in spring and all apples in fall — and runs the surprising members first: the cone's seed before the apple pip, the fern before any flower, grass as the last row of the sort. Read by the author as you, then a non-author review (31 findings — 2 blocks, 12 fixes, 17 suggestions — every one applied), then a cold read of every changed item (25 of 26 keys agreed on the first cut; the one miss was an adult typing "embryo" for "a tiny plant", and the item now says "a tiny ___"; the reader's fourteen flags are each applied or answered below; a second cut of the nine items changed again is recorded in the build record). Reply by number.

The four that unblock the bank

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

Your night ruling is applied: hard is typed — a liverwort on damp rocks that "never makes flowers or cones" (type the name of the specks it releases: spore), and a cucumber plant whose cucumbers grow where its flowers were, with "small pale things inside that can grow into new plants" (type the word: seed). Easy and medium are four-option MCQs and are the bulk. Every atom is tested alone and in a pair. Every exemplar is a plant and a sentence the topic uses nowhere else — the non-author review found five that were quiz items with the plant renamed, and all five were re-instanced (a cedar that never flowers yet drops seeds; a potted fern whose dust settles on a windowsill; a photo of a squash plant in fruit; four foods of which only the avocado stone can grow; the cucumber). The ten types, coverage, the design-move inventory

Approve all / strike these / edit these

2. Do "flowering plant" and "nonflowering plant" stay in L03?

Florida's SC.3.L.15.2 is written in exactly those words, and the register's cross field says they ride inside this sort. L03 coins both in three lines after the sort, with the one line that keeps them honest — the pine is a nonflowering plant that still makes seeds, in its cones — and asks them in two quiz items, one practice item and the term item. The danger (a child reading "nonflowering" as "spores") is met by the pine line and tested three times. The reviewer's view: keep them, but do not let them become the lesson's frame.

Recommendation: keep.

Keep / cut to the seeds-or-spores sort only

3. Does L01 keep the bean on a wet paper towel?

The atom asks only what a seed is. The towel is one photo and five lines: the coat splits, a root comes out, the tiny plant "was alive all along" (Topic 32 keyed a seed living, and this makes it visible), and "it did not need soil to start" (Topic 26 planted seeds in soil; this says where seeds are usually put is not what starts them). Two quiz items and one practice item ask it.

Recommendation: keep.

Keep / cut to the cut-open seed only

4. Does the intro keep "A strawberry has its seeds on the outside"?

It is the hook: three fruits, three places for the seeds, then a fern with none. Strictly, each yellow speck on a strawberry is a tiny case with the seed inside. No lesson line or item rests on the phrase, and the figurative "wears" is gone.

Recommendation: keep, as written. If you want it stricter: "A strawberry's tiny seeds sit on the outside, in little specks."

Keep / stricter wording / cut

The lessons

5. L01 What a seed is — Isolde shakes a pine cone under the pines and out drops something small and brown with a papery wing: can this become a tree as tall as a house? It's a seed. A bean seed, soaked and cut open: a tiny plant curled up, food for the start packed round it, a tough coat round both — a seed is a plant's package for growing a new plant. On a wet paper towel, kept warm, the coat splits and a root comes out: the tiny plant was alive all along, and it needed water and warmth, not soil. Apple pips are seeds; the pine's seeds sit in its cones; a whole coconut is one huge seed — plants with flowers or cones make seeds. Quiz: a cherry stone, an acorn (photo), a petal (is it a seed?); what is inside; where a pine makes its seeds; Osgar's "a seed is dead until it's planted" (no); a pea on a wet towel (yes); which part of a peach; the coconut; what a seed needs to start; "seed" typed last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

6. L02 What a spore is — a fern in the shady corner of Ferran's yard that has never made a flower or a cone, yet new ferns keep appearing round it. Turn a leaf over: rows of brown dots. Tap it over white paper: brown dust, finer than flour. Each speck is a spore; where one lands on damp ground, a new fern can grow. A spore is not a tiny seed: a seed is a package, a spore is one speck with no tiny plant and no food inside, far smaller than any seed (the two-panel card). Moss on a damp wall: no flowers, no cones, capsules that puff out spores. Quiz: what comes out of the dots; Oriol's "a spore is just a very small seed" (no); which has a tiny plant inside; how moss makes new moss; what a fern's spore can grow into; does a fern make flowers; which is bigger; Sabela's moss capsules; which plant makes spores; "spore" typed last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

7. L03 Seeds or spores? Sort the plant — Rhoswen in her grandmother's garden: a rose, a pine, a fern, moss on the wall — some make seeds, some make spores; which are which? One question sorts them all: does it ever make flowers or cones? The rose makes flowers, so seeds; the pine makes cones, so seeds; the fern never makes either, so spores; the moss the same — a sorting table fills a row at a time. Then the lawn: grass makes flowers too, tiny green ones, so grass makes seeds. A plant that makes flowers is a flowering plant; the pine never does — a nonflowering plant that still makes seeds. Quiz: a daisy, a fir tree, a moss, a horsetail with the datum in the stem; a fern and an oak (photo) with none; Rafaela's "a pine makes seeds even though it never flowers" (yes); a tulip and a pine on flowering / nonflowering; Elspet's nonflowering seed-maker; "flowering" typed last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

8. L04 What the flower does — Caradoc's apple tree, all pink-and-white flowers in spring and heavy with apples by fall; he cuts one open and finds five dark pips: where were the pips made? One flower watched: the petals fall, a small green ball stays where the flower was, all summer it grows, by fall it's an apple, and inside are the pips — the seeds, made in the flower; the apple grew round them, right where the flower was. A bean plant's white flowers fade and pods grow where they were, beans inside. A flower is pretty to look at, but its job is making the plant's seeds — a late frost that kills every flower means no apples that year. Quiz: a cherry tree's stones, a pea plant's seeds, Teodoro's tomato flowers (where made); Sholto's "a flower's only job is to look pretty" (no); Vittoria picks every flower off her strawberry plant (seeds this year? no); what is inside the pumpkin that grew where the flower was; which comes first on a pear tree; a young orange tree with no flower yet; Kalinda's beans made in the flowers (yes); "flower" typed last. Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

Two small words for your ear

"Pip" and "stone" are the words the topic uses for an apple's seed and a cherry's or peach's seed (the register's own example is "an apple pip"). The cold reader, reading as a US grade-3 teacher, called both British — US children say "seed" and "pit". Nothing hangs on it; say if you want "seed" and "pit" course-wide, and the topic changes in a few minutes. And the fungi question: mushrooms make spores too but are not plants, and LIF3-072 names plants, so the topic never names them; the type sheet now tells the bank generator that no item may name a mushroom, toadstool or mold (a mushroom under "which plant makes spores" would be a second key). Agree, or ask for a fungus atom.

Applied without asking

Hard bank items typed; every attached question stands alone with its own scene (a pine cone and its seed; fern dust on white paper; a lemon tree in words; a plum strip with one stone; the summary's spruce cone, daffodil and moss capsules); no option bundles a verdict with a reason and every claim is bare yes / no, two of seven true (Rafaela's pine, Kalinda's beans); every stem a positive question and no key echoes a stem adjective or carries a lone second clause; the intro (three fruits on Perdita's table, then a fern in the woods that has never flowered — where did the baby ferns come from?) coins nothing, names no lesson, ends on a ready line and a poll; scene changes spoken with "let's"; three questions on the summary; colour, and no drawn people (four cartoons and fifteen photos briefed for David; real seeds, cones, ferns, moss and flowers are photographs; the labelled seed, the seed-against-spore card, the sorting table, the labelled flower and the flower-to-apple strip are SVG, with white pink-edged petals under "pink and white"); every verdict mark sits under its drawn question; surprising members first; one word for one thing ("flowers", never "blossom"; "a tiny plant" on the drawing as in the text); Topic 32's "makes more of its own kind" never re-taught and its sunflower retrieved in one line; no plant part named beyond the flower's petals and middle (Topic 38 owns the rest); "fruit" not coined; the names register re-run after two renames (Lucan → Osgar, shared with Topic 38; Luned → Nerea) and the old names grepped to zero; the register notes for LIF3-071, 072, 014 and 024 wait in ATOM_PROPOSALS_G3T37.md for your word.

Also on the site

Topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the blueprint · 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, 3, 4 → a section and two or three items come out, or nothing changes. Register notes → the knowledge-graph repo.