Topic 34 "How plants make their own food": your read (2 October 2026)

Two readers answered 105 items cold and agreed every key with each other and with the bank. What they flagged, all applied in v2: a chain card in the bank that printed LIGHT on the very arrow its item asked about, and showed the blanks of three other chain items on the same page (now a words-only item, and the three drawn chains each leave only the asked chip blank); template pronouns ("It makes" for a boy, "its own body" for a girl); four keys a child could pick by their shape; "water" offered as a gas (now "water vapor", Grade 3's word); a bathroom with no window that still had an electric light; Sally and Selena heard as one child (Selena is Dora); a bank whose letters ran A 17 · B 12 · C 14 · D 4 in the bundle's shuffle.

Reader C then read the whole v2 bundle, 105 items, and agreed every key; no second option was defensible anywhere, and no key says the soil or the sunlight is the food or that a plant eats. Two things he would not ship as they stood: PP-50, whose key was eight words against three long ones and the only general statement (now four badger sentences of one shape), and the typed trace-back items, until "sunlight", "the Sun's light" and "light" were accepted (they were, since v2; v3 adds every article and spelling form). He also named two key runs he could ride (the bundle's shuffle, not the bank's; the bank's own run at PP-26 to 28 was broken instead), and Sally beside Scarlett twice (Scarlett is Wendy).

The science is right at Grade 4 depth and the language rules hold, the reviewer said: light carries energy on every line, no plant eats, no "light energy", and the register's "in the end" sentence lands. Three things had to change, and did: "The roots take in only water from the soil" (twelve lines and a key) would have been contradicted by Topic 35, so every line says "water from the soil, not food"; the typed "the Sun" items refused "the light", which the topic's own quiz keys; and L01's headache asked "how does it grow?" while the lesson answers "where its food comes from". Worth fixing, all done: six mechanism sentences that opened on a participle now open on the leaf; the closing return no longer makes energy an ingredient; PP-42's key no longer says "no leaves" is the test (Topic 35 says it is not); five key tells; moss that would survive a month under a bucket is a young lettuce; "the grain is a plant" is "the grain came from a plant"; the two beliefs are spoken in L01's video; four unplaced figures placed or deleted. The reviewer answered the author's three questions as the page above shows, and gave the two rulings in questions 4 and 5.

What a student notices first is the plant card: a yellow Sun, an orange arrow slanting down onto a leaf, a blue arrow rising from brown soil, a grey-blue arrow in from the air, and a green chip SUGAR: THE PLANT'S FOOD; the dark version reads at once. Four fixes before the cold read, all made: the bank's filled chain card handed over its answer (dropped); the water arrow bypassed the roots (it now runs from the soil into a root, up the stem and into a leaf); the chips on every chain card touched the boxes (lifted clear); every chain card was 5 to 8 px on a phone (a four-box chain now wraps two per row at 20 px). The page pass found each article printing its rule three times (rule cards are out of the articles, kept for the videos) and the tables at 5 to 8 px on a phone (each is a stack of one card per row). Minor: the dark card is a sunflower and the text now says so; every picture brief names what the eye goes to first and where each thing sits.

54 items in content/G4T34_pp100_bank.py: 47 four-option MCQs and 7 typed words (sugar twice, leaves once, the Sun four times). Per atom: LIF4-010 21 · LIF4-011 14 · LIF4-012 19. Easy 18, medium 19, hard 17, sorted easy to hard and rising with the atom's place in the topic. MCQ keys A 11 · B 12 · C 11 · D 13. Seventeen question types, one exemplar each on the type sheet: where a plant makes its food; what the leaf takes in from the air; what the food is; a watered plant in the dark; the correct reason a soil-food or eats-sunlight claim is wrong; how a named animal gets its food; which of four living things makes its own food, or must eat; why a sun-warmed animal must eat; where the energy in an eater's food came from in the end; a drawn chain with one blank; the gas named from what the leaf does with it; type the food; type the part; the correct reason an animal-makes-food claim is wrong; build the path the energy took; the correct reason a where-the-energy-came-from claim is wrong; type the source after a two-link trace. Every scene is fresh against the lessons, quizzes and practice (the scene-noun grep is in the build record), and the type sheet lists the draw constraints.

Skill: course-build → write-lesson (L01 a fact-form concept introduction, coining carbon dioxide on first use; L02 a universal attribute of animals by example run with one near miss; L03 the capstone routine, trace the energy back one eater at a time) → write-example-sequence, design-check-sequence, sentence-atomise, write-explanation, write-mcqs (quizzes, attached questions, practice, the PP100 bank and its type sheet); write-video-script (intro, three lesson scripts, summary); review-figures (author self-check on 29 renders and three built pages) @ efd8fba

Grade 4 Topic 34 — How plants make their own food — build record (v1, 2 October 2026)

#### What this is, in plain words

Three short lessons, one per atom. First a child meets the question a child really asks — Sally waters the class sunflower every morning and nobody ever feeds it, so how does it grow? — and the answer is built on one drawing: the Sun's light carries energy to the leaf, the roots take in water from the soil, the leaf takes in a gas from the air (named on that line as carbon dioxide), and with that energy the leaf makes sugar from the water and the carbon dioxide; the sugar is the plant's food. A plant shut in a dark closet makes no sugar, turns pale, and dies. Two wrong ideas are confronted by name: the soil is not the plant's food, and the sunlight is not the plant's food (L01). Next, Scarlett's cat sleeps in the same sunlight as the plant on the windowsill — does the cat make its food too? No: the Sun warms the cat, but the cat has no leaves and makes no sugar. A cow, a hawk, a bear and a lizard on a sunny rock run the one frame, the grass beside the lizard is the contrast, and the rule is Grade 3's sentence with its second half added: an animal cannot make its own food, so it must eat plants or other animals (L02). Last, the capstone: Sally says the energy in Selena's milk came from the Sun, and Selena laughs. The lesson traces the energy back one eater at a time — the Sun's light to the grass, the grass to the rabbit; the grass to the cow, the cow's milk to Selena; the seeds to the mouse to the owl — and lands the register's rule: whatever food you pick, its energy came from the Sun in the end (L03).

Counts. 3 lessons · 3 scripts (148, 146, 146 spoken words) + intro (113 words, 3 question marks) + summary (113 words) · 3 attached questions + the intro's poll + 3 summary questions · 31 quiz items (10 + 10 + 11) · 14 practice items (11 MCQ, 2 typed, 1 written answer; three Grade 3 retrievals; "carbon dioxide" recognised by MCQ, "sugar" and "the Sun" offered then typed) · PP100 bank 54 items (47 four-option MCQs, 7 typed; LIF4-010 21, LIF4-011 14, LIF4-012 19; easy 18, medium 19, hard 17; MCQ keys A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13) · 29 figures (17 SVG by code, 9 photo placeholders, 3 cartoon placeholders) · articles 300 / 256 / 291 words, longest run of idea lines without a subtitle or figure 4 / 4 / 4 · checker 0 FAIL, 26 WARN on the final run (six S8 beat-length notes and twenty S36 words, every one answered below) · check_g4_articles.py 0 FAIL · check_svg_ids.py PASS (0 ids) · names register exit 0 · page builds (/tmp/g4t34.html: 3 lessons, 14 practice, 54 pp100, 29 figures) · blind bundle cut (94 MCQ, 10 typed, 1 written) · video batch built, check_brief.py clean except the INTRO's standing R79 hit, grep -ci strand 0 · NOT sent.

#### Decisions made without a blueprint

One line each, with the reason:

• Three lessons, one per atom, in register order — the row names three atoms and the capstone closes the topic; each payoff is one clause.
• L01 keeps the Grade 3 sentence and adds exactly what the register adds — "a gas from the air" becomes "carbon dioxide", the sugar is named as the food, and the energy line is Topic 4's shape ("The Sun's light carries energy to the leaf"); the Grade 5 keystone (a plant's mass comes from the air, not the soil) is not reached — here only "the soil is not the plant's food".
• "Carbon dioxide" is coined in L01 on the line that uses it, not held to the end — the term is the name of a thing the child has already met as "a gas from the air" (Grade 3), so explain-then-label is satisfied by the Grade 3 phrase; the rule sentence then uses the name. It is in RECALL_BY_MCQ (13 letters, two words).
• "Sugar" is a plain word, not a coined term — the register says "food"; naming the food as sugar makes "food" concrete and gives the bank a spellable typed key; it is not listed in terms.
• "Photosynthesis" and "chlorophyll" are never said — the register coins photosynthesis in grades 6-8 (LIF-070..073); chlorophyll is nowhere in the 3-5 band.
• The dark case is a process figure with its moment named — "After two weeks in the dark" in the caption and the chips NO LIGHT / NO SUGAR MADE; the two-row table beside it is the example set's figure (light / dark, same plant, same water).
• The light arrow is Topic 12's orange energy arrow with the carrier named (LIGHT); water and carbon dioxide arrows are the same size in their own colours — one depiction per thing: energy hand-overs are orange across Grade 4 (Topics 12 and 27); water is Topic 18's WATER blue; the gas is a new thing and gets a pale gray-blue.
• L02 opens on the near miss and answers it at once — the cat in the plant's sunlight is the belief a child holds after L01; the Forces log's "answer the question in the next sentence" rule; then the run of examples.
• The run has two near misses (the cat, the lizard) and three plain examples — a universal attribute of animals has no honest non-example among animals; the near misses are animals IN SUNLIGHT, which is where the belief lives; the plant beside the lizard is the contrast, not a non-example.
• L02's rule is Grade 3's sentence plus its second half — "An animal cannot make its own food, so it eats." (Topic 41) is recalled word for word in the article and the script; the rule adds "plants or other animals", which is the register's behaviour.
• L03's energy card is Topic 27's source card at compact spacing — Topic 27 drew "the Sun → the corn plant grows" with an orange LIGHT arrow; the four-box chains here needed a tighter geometry to stay legible at phone width (758 → 560 wide), so chain_card keeps Topic 27's box, arrow, chips and tints and only changes the spacing; a compact switch in Topic 27's drawer would be the cleaner shared fix (Questions for James).
• The chip on an eater's arrow reads FOOD — Topic 27 printed the bare word ENERGY where the carrier had no name a child owns; here the eaten thing IS the eater's food, so the carrier has a name; the Sun's arrow keeps LIGHT.
• Grade 3's food-chain drawing (dark arrows, "is eaten by") is recalled in one line and one item and never drawn beside the energy card — two things, two drawings; the recall line says the energy goes the same way as the arrow.
• The owl chain is in the article, not the script — the 150-word cap; the script carries the rabbit and the milk, the article adds the owl as the second chain with a different plant.
• The store belief is confronted in L03 with Selena's milk — "The store did not make that energy, because the store only sold the milk" is the lesson line the quiz and practice claims lean on.
• Every lesson gets a video — L01 needs the three arrows drawn one at a time; L02 is an example run a child should watch; L03 is a chain a child should watch build.
• The intro is one scene (lunch on the school field; the grass never eats, yet it grows) with two felt questions — it does not use L01's sunflower, L02's cat or L03's milk, and coins nothing.
• No strand intro — Topic 33 carries the Living things opening video.

Grade 3 doorways, recalled by one item and one line each, never re-taught: Topic 38 ("A plant's leaves are where it makes its food, using sunlight, water and a gas from the air." — L01's recall line and L01-q1 / PR-1; "The roots take in water from the soil." — L01's water line, L01-q2 / PR-2); Topic 33 ("A plant does not eat: it makes its own food." — L01's opening lines; "Every living thing needs food to stay alive." — L02-q1); Topic 41 ("An animal cannot make its own food, so it eats." — L02's third line; "In a food chain drawing, the arrow points from the food to the animal that eats it." — L03's recall line, L03-q1 / PR-3). Grade 4 Topic 4's energy sentence shape ("The Sun's light carries energy to …") carries every energy line; Topic 27's "the Sun → LIGHT → the corn plant grows" card is the depiction L03's chains extend.

The simplification, named: "the leaf takes in carbon dioxide from the air" (through openings the lesson does not name); "the sugar is the plant's food" (the plant also builds itself from it — Grade 5's keystone); "every plant got its energy from the Sun's light" (the tiny sea plants of PP-44 and PP-49 are plants to a child; the word "algae" is not used). No note is printed in the article.

#### Questions for James (the build does not wait on them)

• Should "carbon dioxide" be typed in the bank's hard tier rather than recalled by MCQ? Context: 13 letters and two words; the standing rule recalls a hard-to-spell coined term by MCQ (RECALL_BY_MCQ). Recommendation: keep it by MCQ; the typed hard items are "sugar", "leaves" and "the Sun", which carry the atoms' moves. Built that way.
• Is a compact switch in Topic 27's source_card the right shared fix for four-box chains, so this topic's chain_card can be retired? Context: Topic 27's geometry made a four-box card 758 units wide and its text 7 px at phone width; chain_card here keeps the look and tightens the spacing. Recommendation: add the switch to Topic 27's drawer in a later pass and import it. Built with the local variant, registered under the same thing.
• Should L01 say that the plant also uses the sugar to grow (so "food" is more than fuel), or is that Grade 5's? Context: the register's LIF5-010 lands the air-not-soil keystone; a nine-year-old may ask what the sugar is for. Recommendation: leave it to Grade 5; the atom's behaviour is the recipe. Built without it.

#### Design-check-sequence records

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Skill: design-check-sequence @ efd8fba

Part: L01 (LIF4-010)

Type: (c) concept understanding — a fact with a process inside it, a near miss (the dark) and two documented beliefs.

Plan: recall the part (3 opt, 1) → recall the roots (3 opt, 0) → the WHAT: from the air (3 opt, 0) → the WHAT: the food (3 opt, 1) → APPLY: the fern in the closet (3 opt, 0) → Scarlett's soil claim (no) → Selena's eats-sunlight claim (no) → Sally's TRUE claim (yes) → the WHY: what the light does (3 opt, 0) → the term among its sisters LAST (3 opt, 1). Two-option string B B A; three-option 1 0 0 1 0 0 1.

Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way fixed sets; the dark case on fresh plants; the claim as a reason item; the typed sugar and leaves (PP types 1–5, 11–13).

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Skill: design-check-sequence @ efd8fba

Part: L02 (LIF4-011)

Type: (a) one-step fact about every animal, with the sun-warmed near miss and two beliefs.

Plan: recall needs food (yes) → the elk (3 opt, 1) → the frog (3 opt, 0) → which makes its own food (3 opt, 1) → the snake in the sun (no) → Sally's dog claim (no) → Scarlett's TRUE goldfish claim (yes) → the WHY: the horse (3 opt, 0) → TRANSFER: you at the beach (no) → the caterpillar's bush (yes). Two-option string A B B A B A; three-option 1 0 1 0.

Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way how-it-gets-food set; which-of-four sorts; the reason items (PP types 6–8, 14).

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Skill: design-check-sequence @ efd8fba

Part: L03 (LIF4-012)

Type: (b) a routine — trace back one eater at a time — scaffolded (the drawn chain, then words) → bare.

Plan: recall the arrow (2 opt, A) → the drawn chain's blank first box (3 opt, 0; scaffold) → the same chain in words (3 opt, 1; scaffold) → a three-link chain (3 opt, 2) → what carries the energy to the plant (3 opt, 0) → Sally's TRUE hamburger claim (yes) → Selena's store claim (no) → Scarlett's warmth claim (no) → bare: the egg (3 opt, 2) → bare: the heron (3 opt, 0) → typed the Sun LAST. Two-option string A A B B; three-option 0 1 2 0 2 0.

Belongs in practice/test instead: the four-way where-from set; drawn chains with a blank chip; path building; the claim reasons; typed the Sun (PP types 9, 10, 15–17).

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#### The key strings

• Attached questions in video order (L01, L02, L03, summary 1–3): B A A B B A — A 3 of 6, B 3 of 6.
• Lesson quizzes, two-option items: L01 B B A · L02 A B B A B A · L03 A A B B — no four in a row alternate; no position above 60 % within a lesson.
• Three-option items: L01 1 0 0 1 0 0 1; L02 1 0 1 0; L03 0 1 2 0 2 0; practice two-option B B A B, three-option 1 0 1 0 1 2 1.
• PP100 MCQ keys: A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13 (47 MCQs); the seven typed items carry no letter. Longest-option check: no key is the longest option outside the six fixed sets (whitelisted by name in the type sheet).
• Claims: eight in the quizzes (L01 3, L02 2, L03 3) plus three in the practice; three are keyed yes (L01-q8, L02-q7, L03-q6) and PR-7; No carries 5 of 8 quiz claims (63 %), under the 70 % line.

#### The example sequences, written out

L01 (the process on one drawing, then the near miss): the plant card with its answer layer off (the Sun, the air, the soil, the plant, a question chip) → "The Sun's light carries energy to the leaf." (the orange arrow) → "The roots take in water from the soil, and the stem carries the water up to the leaf." (the blue arrow) → "The leaf also takes in a gas from the air, and that gas is called carbon dioxide." (the gray-blue arrow) → "Using the energy the light carries, the leaf makes sugar from the water and the carbon dioxide. The sugar is the plant's food." (the green chip) → the near miss: the same plant, with water, in a dark closet — no light, no sugar, pale, then dead (the dark card; the two-row table) → the two beliefs → the rule.

L02 (one frame, the near miss first): "The Sun warms the cat's fur, but the cat has no leaves, and it makes no sugar. An animal cannot make its own food, so it eats." → "A cow cannot make its own food, so it eats grass, all day long." → "A hawk cannot make its own food, so it eats mice." → "A bear cannot make its own food, so it eats berries and fish." → "The Sun warms the lizard, but the lizard makes no food. A lizard cannot make its own food, so it eats insects." → the contrast: "The grass beside the rock makes its own food in its leaves, in that same sunlight." → the pair card; the cases table (four animals, one plant) → people → the rule.

L03 (the routine, scaffolded): "The Sun's light carries energy to the grass, and the grass makes its food. A rabbit eats the grass, so the energy in the grass passes to the rabbit. So the energy in the rabbit's food came from the Sun." → "A cow eats grass, so the energy in the grass passes to the cow. The cow makes milk, and Selena drinks the milk. So the energy in Selena's milk came from the Sun, through the grass and the cow." → "An owl eats mice, and a mouse eats seeds. The seeds came from a plant, and the plant made its food with the energy the Sun's light carries. So the energy in the owl's food came from the Sun too." → the rule.

#### Rules applied (the 2 October checklist)

#### Misconception rows and what was done

#### Checker results, every WARN answered

python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py → 0 FAIL, 26 WARN (final run); python3 grade4/check_g4_articles.py … → 0 FAIL (articles 300 / 256 / 291; scripts 148 / 146 / 146; intro 113; summary 113, opener ok).

• S8 ×6 "beat carries 3–4 sentences": kept — the elementary anatomy puts the scene and its question in one opening beat, and the rule beat is the lexicon's three sentences spoken whole; every beat is one animation state.
• S36 unusual words (20 on the final run; 33 on the first), answered: fine, a US animal or plant a nine-year-old knows and the item names it as the actor — elk, coyote, pelican, dandelion, trout, fern, bison, quail, bobcat, palm, prairie (dog), cardinal, beaver, salmon, porcupine, vulture, skunk, cedar, raccoon, manatee, opossum, mockingbird, cricket, shrimp, pecan, basil, birch, bald (eagle); fine, an everyday food — hamburger, noodles; fine, the teacher's name — Valdez; kept with its gloss — nectar ("the sweet nectar inside wildflowers"; "the moths drank nectar from flowers"). Swapped during the build on the same sweep: hedge → bush, vole → rat, minnow → a small fish, garter snake → snake, dusk → the evening.
• S13, S10, S28, S34 WARNs from the first run were all fixed (see the rules table); none remain.

Freshness, re-performed. Scene nouns of every lesson, quiz, attached, intro and summary item: sunflower windowsill mint closet cat window cow hawk mice bear berries lizard rock insects apples chicken milk lunch grass rabbit meadow owl seeds store sparrow apple field pumpkin corn maple fern tomato rose strawberry pepper hamster elk frog lily goat clover squirrel snake dog goldfish horse hay beach caterpillar bush groundhog coyote wheat bread hamburger deer hen egg heron beetle bluebird sheep wolf acorn oak (and the practice's grapevine bean jay spinach basement pelican cactus rattlesnake roadrunner bison grasshopper mockingbird cereal farmer peach cricket skunk bobcat quail weed). Grep of the bank's stems and options: hits only on window (PP-21, "a bathroom with no window" — the word, not Scarlett's window scene), grass (PP-29, "sea grass" — a different plant), field (PP-10, 33, 46 — a generic place word; the intro's scene is a lunch, not a field), dog (PP-15, "prairie dog" — a different animal), bush (PP-4, "a blueberry bush" — a named plant; the quiz's bush is the caterpillar's). Re-scened during the build: the seal on a rock (→ in the water), the vulture's deer (→ opossum), the wolf (→ badger), the oak sapling (→ a young birch), the water lily (→ a cattail), the clover honey (→ wildflowers), the palm on a beach (→ a yard), the cheese-and-goat path (→ shrimp noodles), the hawk and vole (→ eagle and rat), the practice's coyote (→ rattlesnake), beetle (→ cricket), toad (→ mockingbird) and factory (→ the farmer).

Blind bundle (blind/2026-10-02/, 94 MCQ, 10 typed, 1 written). grep "[Drawing:" | grep -iE "makes food|energy|Sun|eats|came from" → 2 hits, both given data, not keys: PP-36's chain ("'the Sun', 'a cabbage', 'a slug', 'a toad'; the chip on arrow 1 is blank") — the Sun box is a GIVEN; the item asks what the blank chip carries (the light); PP-37's chain ("'the Sun', 'water plants', 'a small fish', 'a kingfisher'; the chips read LIGHT, FOOD, FOOD") — the stem itself says "straight from the Sun's light" and asks WHICH LIVING THING; the drawing names all three. No hit on L03-q2 or PP-35 (the blank first box prints "?").

Names: python3 build_tools_names.py Valdez Sally Scarlett Selena → Valdez free · Sally free · Scarlett free · Selena free, exit 0. "Miss", never "Mr." or "Ms.".

Video batch: handoff/G4T34/videos/batch_G4T34.json (5 videos: INTRO 113 words, L01 144, L02 142, L03 142, SUMMARY 109 as the batch counts them) and READY.md; check_brief.py → L01, L02, L03, SUMMARY clean; INTRO carries the standing R79 hit (an intro has no closing bullets) and the at-the-limit 3-question-marks WARN. grep -ci strand → 0. NOT sent.

Banned word for the coordinator (the batch tool, not edited): the tool's BANNED list includes "energy", and this topic must say it — it is the atom (LIF4-012 "trace the energy"), the lexicon ("the energy the Sun's light carries"; "Every eater got its energy from its food") and Topic 4's wording. Prompts that carry the word: INTRO ×3, L01 ×5, L02 ×1, L03 ×17, SUMMARY ×9. The UNBAN table in build_tools_video_batch.py needs "G4T34": {"__all__": ["energy"]} (the same row Topics 4 and 5 have) before the batch is sent.

#### Sentence-atomise self-check

Every idea line, headache line, forest line, caption and script beat was read for: one sentence, one idea, a named actor, a verb carrying the cause, the explicit link stated, the plain word before the term. The per-paragraph tables collapse to these findings: L01 "Light, water and air" — three parallel cause lines, one arrow each, the term on its own line after its plain name; "A plant in the dark" — no light → no sugar → pale → dies, one link per line, "so" and "with no food" carrying the links; L02 run — one frame, "<Animal> cannot make its own food, so it eats <X>", the near misses carry "but" before the contrast; L03 chains — "X eats Y, so the energy in Y passes to X" every time, "So … came from the Sun" closing each. Sweeps S1 (≤ 22 words, one sentence), S2 and S38 (verbs) run clean. Rewrites made on this pass: "The Sun's light lands on the leaf, and the light carries energy to the leaf" → "The Sun's light carries energy to the leaf" (two ideas → one); "the cow makes milk, and Selena drinks it" kept as a list of a chain's steps; "Everything out here is eating. Everything except the grass." → one sentence.

#### Figures (author self-check on the renders and the built pages)

29 figures rendered to /tmp/g4t34_figs/*.png and opened; the three article routes and the L01 quiz route screenshotted at 420 px (/tmp/g4t34_shots/). The plant card's three arrows are one width and all point into a leaf; the LIGHT chip rides the orange arrow, WATER the blue, CARBON DIOXIDE the gray-blue; the sugar chip is green and sits above the leaves with a pointer. The dark card's sky is dark gray, the Sun and the orange arrow are gone, the leaves are pale yellow. The pair card and the two tables render inside their frames (Topic 18's measured-width guard). The four-box chains are legible at phone width after the compact spacing (before it, 7 px text). Photo and cartoon placeholders print their note in gray and never a key. check_svg_ids.py → PASS (this module writes no ids). The non-author review-figures pass is owed.

#### Judgement calls

• "Carbon dioxide" is coined on its first use rather than at the lesson's end: the thing already has a plain name from Grade 3 ("a gas from the air"), so explain-then-label is met by the earlier phrase; holding the name to the end would have made the rule sentence say "a gas" and then rename it.
• The bank's hard tier for LIF4-010 is four items (one term MCQ, three typed) — the atom is the topic's easiest, and depth rises with the atom's order; its reason items are tagged medium.
• "Sea grass" and "tiny sea plants" stand for seagrass and algae: a nine-year-old's words; "algae" is not coined here.
• The hamburger claim (L03-q6, TRUE) was kept although the practice set's food chain lesson in Grade 3 used a meadow: the move (a cooked food traced to the Sun) is new.
• The intro's three question marks sit at the limit: the two felt questions (what is the grass living on; where did the apple's energy come from) are both the topic's payoff, and the ready line is fixed.

#### Owed

Blind read by two readers (blind/2026-10-02/BLIND_BUNDLE_G4T34.md; keys sequestered); the non-author review-questions and review-figures passes; the picture pass through David's pack (12 placeholders, briefs in IMAGE_BRIEFS) — this topic has questions for James, so it waits for his sign-off first; the UNBAN row for "energy" before the batch goes; nothing committed.

#### v2 — reviews applied (2 October 2026)

Skill: course-build → write-lesson (lesson lines; write-video-script for the two L01 beats) → write-mcqs (every item change; check_key_tells.py 0 of 94) → write-explanation (every fb and why touched) → review-figures (author re-render of every changed key, the built pages at 1200 px and a forced 360 px column) @ e23b67f

In plain words. The three reviews of 2 October (guidance / questions / accuracy; the two-reader blind read; the figure review) are applied in place. Every key keeps its letter and its meaning. The one sentence the course was about to contradict — "The roots take in only water from the soil" — now reads "The roots take in water from the soil, not food." on every one of its twelve lines, so Topic 35 can say the roots take in the small bits the soil holds. The typed "the Sun" items accept "light" and "the light", which L03-q5 itself keys. L01's headache now asks the question the lesson answers ("So where does its food come from?"), and its video names the two beliefs the article confronts. Selena is Dora. The plant card's water arrow goes where the water goes: from the soil into a root, along it to the stem, up the stem and into a leaf. Every energy chain is Topic 27's card, imported, with its chips clear of the boxes and the four-box chains wrapped two per row so a phone reads them at 20 px; the comparison tables are folded into one card per row for the same reason.

Topic 27's compact switch existed when step 4 was reached (source_card(..., compact=True, per_row=None) in grade4/topic27_build/content/figures.py, an uncommitted working-tree change by Topic 27's fixer): chain_card here is now a one-line wrapper that calls it; nothing is drawn locally. No import is owed. Risk to note: if Topic 27's working tree is reverted before it is committed, this module's eight chain keys fall over at import.

##### Finding → change

##### Gates (final run)

• python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py → 0 FAIL, 24 WARN (S8 ×6 beat-length notes, as v1; S36 ×18 unusual words, the same words answered in v1 — shrimp, nectar, mockingbird, quail, opossum, Valdez, beaver, salmon, porcupine, vulture, skunk, cedar, manatee, hamburger, basil, birch, bald, noodles; S38 fragments 0; S30 typed fail 0).
• python3 grade4/check_g4_articles.py … → 0 FAIL (articles 300 / 256 / 291; scripts 150 / 146 / 146; intro 113; summary 113, opener ok). L01's article was 305 after the headache and "not food" lines grew; "A plant makes its own food, and it makes that food in its leaves." → "A plant makes its own food in its leaves." brought it to 300.
• python3 build_tools_names.py Valdez Sally Scarlett Dora → Valdez free · Sally free · Scarlett free · Dora free, exit 0. Dora was checked free across grade4/ grade3/ demos/ reviews/ first (hits only in two review records that suggest the name; Topic 38's blind read also proposes Dora for its Tori — the coordinator should give Topic 38 another name).
• check_svg_ids.py → 25 figures, 0 ids, PASS.
• check_key_tells.py → KEY TELLS: 0 of 94 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0) (was 3 of 94).
• Video batch rebuilt: handoff/G4T34/videos/batch_G4T34.json (INTRO 113, L01 146, L02 142, L03 142, SUMMARY 109 as the batch counts; key string B A A B B A); check_brief.py → L01, L02, L03, SUMMARY ✓; INTRO the standing R79 hit and the at-the-limit 3-question WARN (unchanged from v1); the "energy" UNBAN row was already in place; grep -ci strand 0; Selena 0. NOT sent.
• Built page /tmp/g4t34_v2.html (3 lessons, 14 practice, 54 pp100, 25 figures); screenshots at 1200 px and 360 px of #/lesson/L01|L02|L03/article, #/lesson/L03/quiz, #/pp100 in /tmp/g4t34_v2_shots/; every figure read on the page (check 26). Per-key renders opened: plant_card_teach, plant_card_dark, plant_card_headache, pair_card, chain_sun_grass_rabbit, chain_milk, chain_owl, q_chain_blank, pp_chain_duck, pp_chain_chip, table_light_dark, table_animals, pale_plant_photo (/tmp/g4t34_v2_figs/*.png).

##### Key strings (unchanged)

Attached: B A A B B A. L01 two-option B B A, three-option 1 0 0 1 0 0 1; L02 A B B A B A / 1 0 1 0; L03 A A B B / 0 1 2 0 2 0; practice B B A B / 1 0 1 0 1 2 1. PP100 MCQ keys A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13 (47 MCQs, 7 typed).

##### Changed ids

L01 (headache, forest, article ×7 lines, script beats 1, 5, 6, 7, video_question fb unchanged), L01-q4, L01-q6, L01-q10; L02 (article: rule card step removed); L03 (article: rule card step removed; names), L03 attached fb, L03-q2, L03-q3, L03-q7 (name), L03-q11; PR-7 (name), PR-9, PR-12; PP-8, PP-16, PP-20, PP-21, PP-22, PP-23, PP-24, PP-29, PP-33, PP-37, PP-39, PP-42, PP-43 (name), PP-46, PP-47 (name), PP-49 (name), PP-50, PP-54; SUN, SUN_WRONG; summary screens (names); figures: plant_card_* ×3, pair_card, table_light_dark, table_animals, every chain key, pale_plant_photo, IMAGE_BRIEFS; deleted: pp_chain_full, chain_headache, sunflower_photo, seedling_photo.

##### Blind bundle v2

grade4/topic34_build/blind/2026-10-02-v2/ — 94 MCQ, 10 typed, 1 written. grep "[Drawing:" | grep -iE "makes food|energy|Sun|eats|came from" → 1 hit, given data, not a key: PP-36's chain ("'the Sun', 'a cabbage', 'a slug', 'a toad'; the chip on arrow 1 is blank") — the Sun box is a GIVEN; the item asks what the blank chip carries. PP-37 no longer carries a drawing. Selena 0. The v1 folder (blind/2026-10-02/) stays as the record of the first read.

##### Judged differently, and why

• chain_headache deleted, not placed. The reviewers offered "place under 'Is Sally right?' or delete". Placed, it would have printed FOOD on two chips before the article's line "The energy goes the same way as that arrow: from the food to the eater" — the chip is a taught datum, and a headache figure carries the answer's layer OFF. The lunch cartoon already carries the scene.
• The dark case is "a second sunflower", not a mint. One line, as the figure review asked; the card is the schematic plant in every state, so the pot is not drawn (recorded, not fixed: a side view through the soil).
• The tables are folded, not shrunk. Topic 18's shared table drawer prints 11-unit text and cannot reach 13 px on a 344 px column at any honest column count; stack_table here prints one card per row at 15 / 14. The shared drawer owes a phone form (Topic 18 is read-only to this pass); James may prefer a real table on desktop — one depiction was kept.
• Plant and pair cards were re-sized though the brief named only the water arrow and the chains: the page pass had failed them at 5–7 px, and the fix was label sizes only (Topic 27's card_chip at 22, texts 22; the pair card's lines re-wrapped under a width guard).
• PP-37's option order keeps the key at C (the small fish / the kingfisher / the water plants / all three of them) so the bank's letters stay A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13; the review's rewrite listed the options in another order.
• "Neither the soil nor the light is its food: the sugar is." closes beat 7 in place of the review's two-clause form, to hold the script at 150 words after beat 1 grew; both beliefs are still named.
• PP-21 is two sentences ("A houseplant is watered every week in a bathroom with no window, and the light is never switched on. What happens …") rather than three, so the medium tag holds.

##### Owed

Nothing committed. The non-author re-read of the v2 bundle; the picture pass (10 placeholders: 7 photo, 3 cartoon) after James's sign-off on the open questions; Topic 27's compact change to be committed by its fixer; Topic 18's table drawer phone form.

#### v3 — polish (2 October 2026)

Skill: course-build → write-mcqs (every item change; check_key_tells.py at 0) → write-explanation (PP-50's why) → write-like-james (the Needs-you page) @ e23b67f

In plain words. A third cold reader (Reader C) read the whole v2 bundle, 105 items, and agreed every key; no second option was defensible anywhere. What was left was shape and surface: one bank key a child could pick by its look alone (PP-50, eight words against three long ones, and the only general statement), the typed trace-back items' accept lists to confirm, two pairs of keys sitting on the same letter, and two girls' names that start with S. All applied; no key meaning, tag, figure or lesson line changed; two bank keys moved letter (PP-27, PP-45). The second girl is now Wendy (not Scarlett). Blind bundle re-cut to blind/2026-10-02-v3/; batch rebuilt, not sent; nothing committed.

##### Flag → change

##### Gates after v3

• python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py → 0 FAIL, 22 WARN (S8 ×4 beats of three sentences; S36 ×18 unusual words, the same words answered in v1 and v2: shrimp, quail, opossum, vulture, valdez, salmon, porcupine, skunk, nectar, mockingbird, beaver, cedar, manatee, hamburger, basil, birch, bald, noodles).
• python3 grade4/check_g4_articles.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py → 0 FAIL (articles 300 / 256 / 291; scripts 150 / 146 / 146; intro 113; summary 113, opener ok).
• python3 ~/Documents/CourseBuilding-Vault/skills/write-mcqs/check_key_tells.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py → KEY TELLS: 0 of 94 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0); KEY LONGEST (any margin) 27 of 94, fixed-set exempt 36.
• python3 build_tools_names.py Valdez Sally Wendy Dora → Valdez free · Sally free · Wendy free · Dora free, exit 0.
• python3 ~/Documents/CourseBuilding-Vault/skills/review-figures/check_svg_ids.py grade4/topic34_build/content/figures.py → PASS (25 figures, 0 ids).
• python3 build_tools_build_topic_site.py grade4/topic34_build/content/G4T34.py /tmp/g4t34_p.html → 3 lessons, 14 practice, 54 pp100, 25 figures.
• Batch rebuilt (build_tools_video_batch.py): 5 videos (INTRO 113, L01 146, L02 142, L03 142, SUMMARY 109 as the batch counts), key string B A A B B A; check_brief.py ✓ on L01, L02, L03 and the summary; the intro's standing R79 line and its at-the-limit three-question WARN, unchanged. grep -c Scarlett → 0; grep -ci strand → 0. Not sent.
• Blind bundle re-cut: grade4/topic34_build/blind/2026-10-02-v3/ — 94 MCQ, 10 typed, 1 FRQ (105 held), keys sequestered. grep "[Drawing:" | grep -iE "makes food|energy|Sun|eats|came from" → 1 hit, PP-36's chain with the Sun box as a GIVEN and the asked chip blank (as v2). Scarlett 0.

##### Counts and key strings after v3

Unchanged from v2 except the two moved letters: 3 lessons · 31 quiz items (10 + 10 + 11) · 3 attached + 3 summary questions · 14 practice · bank 54 (47 four-option MCQs, 7 typed): LIF4-010 21 · 011 14 · 012 19; easy 18 / medium 19 / hard 17; bank MCQ keys A 11 · B 12 · C 11 · D 13 (was A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13). Attached B A A B B A; every quiz and practice key string as in v2.

##### Item ids changed in v3 (for the mini re-read)

Bank: PP-50 (options, why) · PP-27 (option order, key A → C) · PP-45 (option order, key B → A) · PP-22, PP-47 (name) · PP-51–54 and PR-13 (accept list only). Lessons: L01-q6, L02-q7, L03-q8 (name) · L03-q11 (accept list only). Lesson text, not items: L02's headache, article, caption and script beat 1 (name). Practice: PR-9 (name). Figures: windowsill_cartoon, cat_window_cartoon (note, alt and brief: name only). Records: TYPES_G4T34.md (v3 note), grade4/NAMES_POOL.md (row 34).

##### Judgement calls, v3

1. PP-50 was equalised, not given Reader C's sentence. His key kept the stem's word "sunshine" and a ", not" clause no distractor had; four same-shape badger sentences remove the tell without an echo.
2. The bank was re-lettered, not the bundle. A reader's letters come from the bundle tool's seeded shuffle; the bank's string is what the type sheet's draw constraints and the live PP100 read, so that is where the one real run (PP-26–28) was broken.
3. The accept lists were widened by surface forms only. Every added form is a spelling or article variant of a form already accepted; "the leaves" and "the plant" stay refused with their own feedback lines, as the stems say "in the end".
4. Wendy, not Maya. Reader C's Maya is in 33 files under the four folders; the rule is one name per topic across the course, so the swap went to a 0-hit name.

##### Owed after v3

• A mini re-read of PP-27, PP-45 and PP-50 (blind/2026-10-02-v3/) by a reader who has not seen the keys.
• James's six questions on the Needs-you page (records/REVIEW_NEXT_G4T34.md → course_preview/review/REVIEW_NEXT_G4T34.html); the picture pass (7 photo and 3 cartoon placeholders) waits on them.
• James's notes on the scripts are the cue to send the five-video batch. Topic 27's compact change to be committed by its fixer; Topic 18's table drawer phone form.

Nothing committed.

Skill: course-build → write-mcqs → write-explanation, design-check-sequence @ efd8fba · v2 fix pass (reviews of 2 Oct applied) @ e23b67f · v3 polish (Reader C) @ e23b67f

Topic 34 — How plants make their own food — the PP100's question types, with their exemplars (v2, 2 October 2026)

v2 (reviews applied, same day): Selena → Dora as claim-maker; PP-37 is a words-only item (no chain card prints LIGHT in the bank; the two drawn type-10 items keep a "?" where they ask); PP-16 and PP-33 take he / she forms of their fixed sets; PP-20 is a young lettuce plant (moss survives a month under a bucket); PP-21 names the light never switched on; PP-22's key is "The roots take in water from the soil, not food."; PP-23, PP-24, PP-29, PP-42, PP-46 and PP-50 rewritten so no key is the odd shape (check_key_tells.py: 0 of 94); PP-54's why says the rice came FROM a plant. Letters unchanged: A 11 · B 13 · C 10 · D 13.

v3 (Reader C's re-read applied, same day): PP-50 (type 16) has four badger statements of one shape and one length, the key "A badger gets its energy from the food it eats." at C; PP-27's key moved to C and PP-45's to A so the bank's string has no three keys in a row on one letter (the bank's own run was PP-26/27/28; the runs Reader C saw were the bundle's shuffle); SUN accepts every light form with and without its article; Wendy is Wendy in every claim. Letters now A 11 · B 12 · C 11 · D 13.

In one line: 54 items, 47 four-option MCQs and 7 typed; seventeen types; LIF4-010 (a plant makes its food) carries the easy tier plus three medium and four hard term items; LIF4-011 (an animal cannot) runs easy to medium with two hard reason items; LIF4-012 (trace the energy) is medium and hard only. MCQ keys A 11 · B 12 · C 11 · D 13 (v3).

What this page is. James reads a bank as its question TYPES first (vault: A bank is reviewed as its question types first, one exemplar each). Under the Grade 4 standing brief the bank is built straight away (content/G4T34_pp100_bank.py); this sheet is the way in. Tags follow depth of reasoning — easy = one fact or a one-step sort; medium = the rule applied to a fresh case, a reason picked, or a drawn chain read; hard = two or more links chained, a claim judged by its correct reason, a path built, or a term produced — and rise with the atom's order. Every hard item carries a one-line "hard because" (hb) in the bank file.

Rulings already applied. Four options on every MCQ (six fixed sets, rotated so the key moves: where-the-food-is-made "in its leaves / in its roots / in the soil around it / in its flowers"; what-from-the-air "carbon dioxide / water / sugar / soil"; what-the-food-is "sugar / soil / water / sunlight"; the dark "It turns pale, then dies / It grows faster than before / It makes its food from the soil instead / Nothing changes"; how-an-animal-gets-food "It eats plants or other animals / It makes food in its body / It takes in food from the soil / It makes food from sunlight"; where-the-energy-came-from "from the Sun / from the soil / from the water it drank / from its own body" — a fixed set is whitelisted from the longest-option check because the same words sit under every item); no option bundles a verdict with its reason (every claim is "X is wrong when she says … What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons, the key never the longest); every stem is a positive question of at most two sentences (S23 clean); an item chain card prints "?" where it asks and its blind text is the boxes and chips as data; "carbon dioxide" is recalled by MCQ among its sisters (RECALL_BY_MCQ, 13 letters); the typed keys are "sugar", "leaves" and "the Sun" (lexicon words, spellable, child spellings and article forms in the accept lists); no multi-select; every item names ONE atom; US spelling; units as words.

The bar list (real things a generated item must never use): "photosynthesis", "chlorophyll", "oxygen" as something the leaf gives out, "producer", "consumer", "predator", "prey" (not this topic's words); "eats sunlight", "food from the soil", "drinks" for roots, "captures", "traps", "soaks up", "fuel" (the language rules); a mushroom or other fungus as a food-maker (not a plant; Topic 35's decomposers); any plant whose leaves are not the obvious food-maker to a child (a cactus's spines are left to the practice set's "which makes its own food" only); a non-US animal (hedgehog, camel, python, tortoise, dormouse); any lesson scene (the sunflower on the windowsill, the second sunflower in the closet, Wendy's cat in the window, the cow, the hawk, the bear, the lizard on the rock, the rabbit and the grass, the owl and the mouse and the seeds, Dora's milk and the store, the intro's lunch on the field with the apple and the sparrow); any quiz, attached or practice scene (pumpkin, corn, maple, apple tree, fern, tomato, rose bush, strawberry, pepper, hamster, elk, frog on a lily pad, goat, clover, squirrel, snake on a rock, dog, goldfish, horse and hay, the beach, caterpillar and bush, groundhog, coyote, wheat, bread, hamburger, deer, hen and egg, heron, beetle and bluebird, sheep, wolf, oak and acorns, grapevine, bean, jay, spinach in a basement, pelican, cactus, rattlesnake, roadrunner, bison, grasshopper and mockingbird, cereal and the farmer, peach, cricket and skunk, bobcat and quail); a claim-maker from another topic's row (only Sally, Wendy and Dora); "biggest / smallest" for a count.

#### The seventeen types

Hard because — type 11: the term is recalled from what the gas does, no clue word in the stem. Types 12, 13, 17: the word is produced, not picked, and in 17 only after a two-link trace. Type 14: the belief (sunlight on an animal makes food; an animal's body makes food) is judged by the lesson's reason against three reasons that half-accept it. Type 15: the path is built from a scene told in reverse order, or two ideas are chained (who makes food, inside a three-link trace). Type 16: each claim is judged by its correct reason, which needs the trace held against the belief, and every distractor moves the source somewhere else plausible.

#### One exemplar per type, in full

Type 1 (easy, LIF4-010). A cedar tree stands in a yard in Oregon. Where does the tree make its food? — in its leaves / in its roots / in the soil around it / in its flowers. Why: A plant makes its own food in its leaves. A cedar tree is a plant. So the cedar tree makes its food in its leaves. (nearest lesson-side instance: L01-q1, the pumpkin plant, three options, a Grade 3 recall — here four options and a tree)

Type 2 (easy, LIF4-010). Ivy grows up a brick wall. Which of these do the ivy's leaves take in from the air? — water / carbon dioxide / sugar / soil. (nearest: L01-q3, the maple, three options)

Type 3 (easy, LIF4-010). A pecan tree makes its own food in its leaves. What is that food? — soil / water / sugar / sunlight. (nearest: L01-q4, the apple tree, three options)

Type 4 (medium, LIF4-010). A basil plant in a pot is watered every day, but it is kept inside a closed cardboard box for three weeks. What happens to the basil plant? — It turns pale, then dies. / It grows faster than before. / It makes its food from the soil instead. / Nothing changes. (nearest: L01-q5, the fern in the closet — here the dark is a box, and "nothing changes" is the fourth belief)

Type 5 (medium, LIF4-010). Wendy is wrong when she says a lemon tree gets its food from the soil. What is the correct reason? — The roots take in food from the soil only at night, when the soil is cool. / The soil feeds the tree only after it rains, when the soil is wet. / The tree takes in its food from the soil through its leaves. / The roots take in water from the soil, not food. (nearest: L01-q6, the tomato plant, bare yes / no — here the reason is picked)

Type 6 (easy, LIF4-011). A raccoon lives in a park in Michigan. How does the raccoon get its food? — It eats plants or other animals. / It makes food in its body. / It takes in food from the soil. / It makes food from sunlight. (nearest: L02-q2, the elk, three options)

Type 7 (easy, LIF4-011). Which one of these living things makes its own food? — a chipmunk / a crow / a cardinal / moss. (nearest: L02-q4, goat / clover / squirrel, three options)

Type 8 (medium, LIF4-011). A seal floats in sunny water for hours, then dives to catch fish. Why must the seal eat? — It cannot make its own food. / The water is too cold for it. / Fish are the only animals in the sea. / The sunlight gave it too much food. (nearest: L02-q8, the horse and the hay — here the sun-warmed animal of the lesson's near miss, in the water)

Type 9 (medium, LIF4-012). A chipmunk eats nuts from a hickory tree. Where did the energy in the chipmunk's food come from in the end? — from the Sun / from the soil / from the water it drank / from its own body. (nearest: L03-q3, the groundhog and the clover, three options)

Type 10 (medium, LIF4-012, drawn). Here is the energy chain for a toad in a garden, with the first arrow's chip blank. What carries the energy from the Sun to the cabbage? — the soil / the rain water / the wind / the light. (figure pp_chain_chip; blind text: the four boxes and the chips as data; nearest: L03-q2, the groundhog's chain with the first BOX blank — here the chip is the blank)

Type 11 (hard, LIF4-010). A leaf takes in this gas from the air and uses it, with water, to make sugar. What is the gas called? — oxygen / water vapor / dust from the air / carbon dioxide. (nearest: L01-q10, the same term recognised among three; PR-10)

Type 12 (hard, LIF4-010, typed). A grape vine's leaves make the vine's food on a sunny day. Type the name of the food they make. — accept: sugar, a sugar, the sugar, sugars, suger, shugar, sugur, sugre, suggar. (nearest: PR-12, the peach tree, typed in the practice set)

Type 13 (hard, LIF4-010, typed). A cotton plant makes its own food in one part of itself. Type the name of that part. — accept: leaves, the leaves, its leaves, leaf, a leaf, the leaf, its leaf, leafs, leeves, leavs, leves, the leafs. (nearest: L01-q1 / PR-1, the part picked among three)

Type 14 (hard, LIF4-011). Sally is wrong when she says a turtle on a sunny log makes its own food, like a plant does. What is the correct reason? — The turtle's body makes no sugar from the sunlight. / The turtle makes food only when it is in the water. / The turtle gets too little light on the log. / The turtle makes its food at night instead. (v2: "no leaves" is not the course's test — Topic 35 says so — and the ", so" clause marked the key) (nearest: L02-q5, the snake on the rock, bare yes / no)

Type 15 (hard, LIF4-012). A boy eats a bowl of noodles with shrimp. The shrimp ate tiny sea plants. Which path did the energy take to reach the boy? — the shrimp → the sea plants → the Sun → the boy / the Sun → the sea plants → the shrimp → the boy / the sea plants → the Sun → the shrimp → the boy / the Sun → the shrimp → the sea plants → the boy. (nearest: L03-q9, the hen's egg, "where from in the end" — here the whole path is built)

Type 16 (hard, LIF4-012). Sally is wrong when she says a vulture that eats a dead opossum got none of its energy from the Sun. What is the correct reason? — The vulture gets its energy from the Sun's warmth while it flies. / The opossum ate plants, and plants get their energy from the Sun's light. / The opossum got its energy from the Sun's warmth on its back. / A vulture makes its own food, so it needs no energy from anything else. (nearest: L03-q8, Wendy's deer-warmth claim, bare yes / no)

Type 17 (hard, LIF4-012, typed). A crab eats a snail, and the snail ate seaweed. Type where the energy in the crab's food came from in the end. — accept: the Sun, sun, the sun, Sun, sunlight, the sunlight, the Sun's light, the sun's light, the suns light, light from the Sun, light from the sun, from the Sun, from the sun, sunshine, the sunshine, the Sun's energy, the sun's energy, the sunn, the son, teh sun. (nearest: L03-q11 and PR-13, typed after a two-link chain on land — here the chain is in the sea)

#### ⟂ draw constraints (an item that prints another's answer; near twins — never served in one test)

• PP-11 (the root takes in water) ⟂ PP-22 (its key says "The roots take in only water from the soil").
• PP-24 (what the leaf needs: water, carbon dioxide and the energy the light carries) ⟂ PP-5 / 6 / 7 (carbon dioxide from the air) and PP-38 (the term) and PP-23 (the light carries energy to the leaves).
• PP-38 (carbon dioxide named) ⟂ PP-5 / 6 / 7 (its stem repeats their key's job).
• PP-37 (which of three named links got its energy straight from the Sun's light: the water plants) ⟂ PP-46 (the only food-maker is the wheat plant) — one move in two scenes. (v2: PP-37 carries no drawing, so the v1 ⟂ with PP-35 / PP-36 / L03-02 — one filled card showing the others' blanks — is dissolved.)
• PP-12–16 (the how-an-animal-gets-food fixed set; PP-13 and PP-16 share the key position) — draw one per test.
• PP-30–34 (the where-the-energy-came-from fixed set; PP-30 and PP-34 share the key position) — draw one per test.
• PP-35 (the blank first box is the Sun) ⟂ every type 9 and type 17 item (their key).
• PP-39 / PP-40 (typed sugar) ⟂ PP-8 / 9 / 10 (sugar as an option) — recognition before recall holds by draw order: a typed sugar item is served only after one of PP-8 / 9 / 10.
• PP-41 (typed leaves) ⟂ PP-1–4 (leaves as an option) — same draw order rule.
• Near twins, draw one per test: PP-19 / 20 / 21 (the dark); PP-25 / 26 (which must eat); PP-17 / 18 (which makes its own food); PP-51–54 (typed the Sun); PP-47–50 (the claim reasons).

Skill: course-build → review-lesson (Roles B, B2) · review-questions · review-accuracy @ fb37d14 — non-author review, filed by the coordinator from the reviewer's report

Topic 34 — guidance, questions and accuracy review, 2 October 2026

The science is right at Grade 4 depth and the language rules hold — light carries energy on every line, no plant eats, no "light energy", the register's "in the end" sentence lands. Every record claim re-performed is true. Two things must change: "The roots take in only water from the soil" (12 lines, a key) is contradicted by Topic 35 L03 ("plants take those bits in through their roots"); and the typed "the Sun" items refuse "the light", which L03-q5 itself keys. Everything else is wording.

Key-tell checker: KEY TELLS: 3 of 94 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 3, c: 0) — PP-23, PP-29, PP-50.

#### Essentials

1. "only water" ×12 → "water, not food". 2. SUN accept list adds "light", "the light". 3. L01's headache asks "how does it grow?" but the lesson answers "where its food comes from" — align.

#### Worth fixing

1. Participle-first mechanism sentence ×6 → actor first. 5. Closing return makes energy an ingredient. 6. "no leaves, so no sugar" as THE reason in PP-42's key — Topic 35 says leaves are not the test. 7. PP-37 answerable in words — drop the card, re-ask on three named links (dissolves the ⟂ with PP-35/36/L03-02). 8. PP-23, PP-24, PP-29, PP-42, PP-50 tells. 9. PP-20 moss → a seedling. 10. "The grain is a plant" (PR-9, PP-54, PP-46) — seeds came FROM a plant. 11. Video–article parity: the soil and sunlight beliefs live only in L01's article. 12. ⟂ list adds PP-12–16 and PP-30–34. 13. Unplaced sunflower_photo, seedling_photo, pale_plant_photo, chain_headache — place pale_plant_photo after the dark card; place or delete chain_headache; delete the rest.

#### Leave (rulings on the blind-read flags)

D starved / runs: the bundle's shuffle, not the bank. "is eaten by": Grade 3 Topic 41's lexicon sentence — stands. PR-10 "water vapor": met (Grade 3 Topic 21, Grade 4 Topic 16) — so L01-q10's "water" → "water vapor". PP-21: "and the light is never switched on". "Carbon dioxide" coined on first use — right. "Sugar" as the food — honest. "Turns pale, then dies" — true, not frightening. Coordinator's rulings: Selena → Dora (free course-wide), as in Topics 23, 28, 29; eater-arrow chip is FOOD course-wide (Topic 27's card_food changes in its fix pass).

Author's questions: (1) keep carbon dioxide by MCQ — yes. (2) compact=True on source_card — yes (Topic 27's fixer is adding it; import it here with the chip lifted clear of the boxes and a phone form). (3) leave growth to Grade 5 — yes, so L01 must not ask "how does it grow?".

The Topic 34 sentence Topic 35 recalls (in place of Grade 3 Topic 41's, five hits in G4T35_lessons.py): "The Sun's light carries energy to the grass, and the grass makes its food." Where Topic 35 recalls the Grade 3 recipe (eight hits): "water from the soil, carbon dioxide from the air, and the energy the Sun's light carries".

Skill: review-figures @ fb37d14 — non-author figure review with the page pass, filed by the coordinator from the reviewer's report

Topic 34 — figure review, 2 October 2026

What a student notices first: the plant card — a yellow Sun, an orange arrow slanting down onto the left leaf, a blue arrow rising from brown soil, a grey-blue arrow in from "air", all three heads on a leaf, a green chip SUGAR: THE PLANT'S FOOD. The dark version reads at once. The chains read left to right Sun → plant → eater → eater, LIGHT then FOOD, FOOD. On a phone every chain card is a postage stamp (5–8 px).

#### Fix before the cold read

1. PP-37 (pp_chain_full) hands over its answer — the LIGHT chip rides the Sun → water plants arrow; the same filled card shows PP-35's and PP-36's blanks, all on one PP100 route. Drop the drawing from PP-37 and carry the chain in the stem (the guidance review's rewrite); no filled chain card may sit in the bank.
2. Water arrow bypasses the roots — runs from the soil straight to the right leaf, outside the roots and beside the stem; the WATER chip covers the right root. Redraw: arrow from the soil INTO a root, up the stem, into the leaf; chip clear of the root.
3. Chain chips touch and overlap the boxes (LIGHT 2.5 over both neighbours; FOOD 1 unit from both corners) on all 8 chain keys. Drawer fix: dy=-42 so chips sit above the box tops.
4. Phone legibility, item figures FAIL — four-box cards 5.0–6.0 px, three-box 6.6–7.9 px at 360 px. A horizontal four-box chain cannot reach 13 px at phone width; the drawer needs a phone form (two boxes per row, ≤320 frame, font ≥15) — build it into Topic 27's compact switch and import.

#### Page pass

PASS desktop; FAIL at 360 px (item 4; plant cards 5–6 px, tables 5–8 px, rule cards 7 px). check_svg_ids.py: 29 figures, 0 ids, PASS. Each article prints its rule three times — drop rule_* from the articles (keep for video).

#### Convention check against Topic 27

Same box shape, tints, arrow, chip style; chain_card differs in box 100 vs 124, gap 40 vs 74, height 56 vs 62. The compact switch is right — with the chip lifted (fix 3) and a phone form (fix 4) built into it. FOOD on eater arrows, LIGHT on the Sun's arrow: one convention across all eight cards (Topic 27's card_food changes to FOOD in its fix pass).

#### Unplaced

pale_plant_photo — place in L01 after "turns pale, and then it dies" (brief says open door, note/alt say closed — pick one). chain_headache — place under L03's "Is Sally right?" or delete. sunflower_photo, seedling_photo — delete.

#### Minor

Dark card draws the sunflower while the text says "a mint plant"; plant in open ground vs a pot; q_chain_blank and pp_chain_duck near-twins (blank always box 1 + chip 1). Briefs: none states the eye-first thing; left/right unstated where it matters. No caption says "real"; colour words match.

Best: plant_card_dark; plant_card_teach's three arrows; table_animals. Weakest: pp_chain_full; the water arrow; every chain card at phone width.

Skill: course-build → review-lesson (Role A blind key read, two readers; Role C adjudication by the coordinator) @ fb37d14

Topic 34 — How plants make their own food — blind read, 2 October 2026

Every key agreed by two blind readers (105 rows each; MCQ disagreements 0; typed answers on list; the FRQ models match). No key says the soil or the sunlight is the food; "plants eat" sits only in wrong claims; every trace-back item has one honest chain to a plant and the Sun. The faults are a card that prints its answer, template pronouns, and shape tells.

#### Flags carried into the fix pass

Readers' files: blind/2026-10-02/READER_A.md, READER_B.md.

Skill: review-lesson @ e23b67f — Role A, blind key reader (Reader C, cold, v2 bundle only)

Takeaway. Every item is answerable with exactly one true option, and no key says the soil or the sunlight is the food or that a plant eats. The v1 drawing tell is gone: both chain cards (L03-02, PP-35) leave the asked chip blank, and PP-36's blank chip is the one the stem asks about. Two things I would fix before shipping: PP-50's key is the odd one out by shape (eight words against three sixteen-word distractors, and the only general statement), and the four typed trace-back items need "sunlight" / "the Sun's light" / "light" accepted, because L03-05 and PP-36 teach that the light is what carries the energy — a child who types "sunlight" is right. Two key runs a test-wise child could ride: PP-19/20/21 share one option set and all key A; PP-30/31/32 all key B. Sally and Scarlett sit next to each other twice (L01-06/08, L02-06/07); a nine-year-old can read the two S-names as one child, though it never changes an answer.

#### Adversarial answers (typed items)

#### Cross-item notes

• "The light" as a typed answer. Ten typed items ask "where the energy came from in the end" and the course's own L03-05 / PP-36 teach "the light carries the energy from the Sun". "Sunlight", "the Sun's light" and bare "light" are honest answers and must match; "the leaves" / "the plant" should not (the stem says "in the end").
• No key says soil or sunlight is the food, or that a plant eats. "The food the leaves eat" (L01-09 B), "makes its food from the soil instead" (PP-19-21 B) and "keep it as food" (PP-23 D) are all distractors.
• Chain cards. L03-02 and PP-35: arrow-1 chip blank, FOOD on arrow 2. PP-36: arrow-1 chip blank, FOOD on 2 and 3, and the stem asks for arrow 1. No card hands over its answer.
• Trace-back items: one honest chain each (L03-03/04/09/10, PR-08, PP-30-34, 37, 44-46, 51-54); PP-44/45 give the chain as options and the Sun → plant → eater order is the only one that reads as a food chain.
• Pronouns: L02-09 "your", PR-09 "her" (Scarlett), PP-16 "he/his" (boy), PP-33 "her" (girl) all match.
• Names: Sally and Scarlett are both S-names of similar length and sit adjacent at L01-06/08 and L02-06/07. Dora is distinct. Suggest a second name that starts with another letter (e.g. Maya) for one of them.
• Key runs (for the adjudicator's S25 twin): PP-19/20/21 = A A A with an identical option set; PP-30/31/32 = B B B (30 and 31 share an option set); PP-44/45 = A A. The rest of the PP100 string looks spread.
• Wording: L03-01 and PR-03 use the passive "is eaten by" in both options; a nine-year-old reads "The caterpillar eats the leaf" more easily. Not a key fault.

Would not ship as is: PP-50 (key shape tell); typed items L03-11, PR-13, PP-51, PP-52, PP-53, PP-54 until "sunlight" / "the Sun's light" / "light" are accepted alongside "the Sun".