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

Topic 41 "Food chains" — your read (29 September 2026)

The Life strand's last feeding topic. Three lessons: every food chain starts with the Sun (an elephant's leaves, a herring's plants too small to see, then grass, rabbit, fox); read the arrows — from the food to the eater, "is eaten by"; take one living thing out and say what changes. Read by the author as you, then a non-author review (5 blocks, 24 smaller points — every row adjudicated in the build record and every fix on the page), then a cold read of the 28 changed items: every key agreed; two wording flags taken. The page · Blueprint · Type sheet. Reply by number.

The three that unblock the bank

1. Does "energy" stay in one sentence per lesson — the rule — and out of every question?

Your 25 Sep rule binds "energy" to a transfer sentence: a giver, a carrier, a receiver ("the Sun's light carries energy to the slide", Topic 29).

The register's own line for this atom says "the energy in every food chain starts as sunlight". The first draft leaned on that and asked eighteen questions with "Where did the energy in this chain start?".

The reviewer called it, and the fix on the page is: the rule keeps the one transfer sentence — "The Sun's light carries energy to a plant, and the plant makes its food" — every other line says "the Sun's light lands on the plant, and the plant makes its food", and every question asks the lexicon's own words: "Where does this food chain start? — with the Sun". No question or option says "energy" now.

Recommendation: keep it so. It is Topic 29's sentence once, where the rule needs it, and nowhere a child could read "energy" as a thing sitting in the grass.

Keep / let questions ask "Where did the energy start?" too / take "energy" out of the rule as well

2. Do the sea's first living things stay "tiny floating plants"?

L01's surprising member: a herring eats shrimp, the shrimp eat plants too small to see one by one — together they turn the water green — and the Sun's light lands on them, so they make their own food.

Scientists say algae or plankton, and most are not true plants. Grade 4 coins "algae" (LIF4-020, producers).

Recommendation: keep "tiny floating plants", so "the first living thing is a plant, because a plant makes its own food" holds in every case a child meets; Grade 4 sharpens the word. It is tested once (Birgit's claim) and nowhere else. The reviewer agrees.

Keep / say "algae" now / cut the sea chain

3. Do the nine question types stand, with two typed hard types read off a drawing?

Every atom is tested alone (two forms each) and in pairs. Easy and medium are four-option MCQs, plus one reorder item (your Topic 2 ruling). Hard is typed, and both hard types are two steps on a drawn chain with one card crossed out: type the living thing there will be more of (read the arrow into the crossed card, then predict); type the living thing that goes hungry (read the arrow out of it, then predict — four cards, so the eater is not simply the last one). The stems name nothing; the drawing carries the names; the accept lists are generated. The reviewer's three blocks on the sheet (a one-step "hard" item, a stem that printed its answer, an exemplar on the lesson's own scene) are fixed. The nine types, coverage, the design-move inventory

Approve all / strike these / edit these

The lessons

4. L01 Every food chain starts with the Sun — Lenka, on the wildlife-park bus, watches the elephant eat leaves: what feeds the leaves? A leaf makes its own food; the Sun's light lands on it. So even the biggest animal on land eats food that began with the Sun's light on a leaf. Then the sea (tiny floating plants, shrimp, herring), then the meadow (grass, rabbit, fox — the fox can't live on grass, but its line of food starts with the Sun). "Food chain" is coined last; the rule last. Quiz: where a drawn chain starts (no Sun drawn), which living thing comes first, Zeno's shark (no), Darcy's "the plant eats the Sun" (no), what a plant gets from the Sun (light). Article · script · quiz Fine / say where

5. L02 Read the arrows in a food chain — Uri's poster has its arrows from the fox to the rabbit; Eshan's point the other way. The arrow points from the food to the eater: read it as "is eaten by". The grass is eaten by the rabbit; the rabbit is eaten by the fox. Uri's arrow says the fox is eaten by the rabbit — that never happens, so his arrows point the wrong way (drawn with its question above the cross). A garden chain is read bare: what does the robin eat? Find the arrow into the robin. The Sun keeps its own yellow arrows; nothing eats the Sun. Quiz: drawn field, river and wood chains, Willem's backwards claim, a reorder. Article · quiz Fine / say where

6. L03 Take one living thing out of the chain — the farmer moved every rabbit away; Tillie finds tall grass and a thin fox. The grass has no eater now, so there is more grass; the fox has lost its food, so it goes hungry. Then imagine the foxes gone: more rabbits, so less grass (the rule a second time — taking out the top animal did not help the grass). Then the grass dies: every animal in the chain goes hungry. Three removals in one 72-second video; the reviewer and I both keep them together. Quiz: a field chain with the grasshoppers gone (what, then why in writing), the wood with the blue jays gone, the pond with the pondweed dead, Mattie and Oriel (no), Ulyana (yes). Article · quiz Fine / say where

Applied without asking

Hard bank items typed and read off a drawing; every attached question stands alone with its own drawing; 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; colour, and no drawn people (three cartoons and three photos for David); the Sun is Topic 29's drawing with its yellow light arrows, never a chain arrow; every chain's first card is a whole plant; living things "go hungry", nothing is killed; a reorder for chain order; the pond's heron and the river's kingfisher gave way to a water snake and a pike so Topic 42 keeps its birds; the register notes for LIF3-050, 051 and 052 wait in ATOM_PROPOSALS_G3T41.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 → the wording stands or every "where does it start" question is reworded once more. 2 → the sea chain stays as drawn, or its first card is renamed. 3 → a bank of about fifty from the approved types, a second cold read, the hand-over folder for David. Register notes → the knowledge-graph repo.