Skill: write-like-james @ e23b67f · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, review-lesson (two blind reads and a full re-read), review-figures, review-accuracy @ efd8fba; v2 fixes @ fb37d14; v3 polish @ e23b67f

Topic 35 "Producers, consumers and decomposers": your read (2 October 2026)

Skim first

The lessons in teaching order, each with its one rule sentence; then the intro script; then the question types. The review page follows.

The lessons and their rules

Lesson	Atom	Rule sentence
L01 Living things that make their own food: producers	LIF4-020	A producer makes its own food. It uses sunlight to make it. Grass, trees and pond algae are producers.
L02 Living things that eat other living things: consumers	LIF4-021	A consumer eats other living things. That is how it gets its energy. Plant eaters and animal eaters are both consumers.
L03 Living things that feed on dead things: decomposers	LIF4-022	A decomposer feeds on dead things. It breaks them into tiny bits. Mushrooms and mold are decomposers.
L04 Where the dead leaves go: decomposers feed the soil	LIF4-025	Decomposers break dead things into tiny bits. The bits go into the soil. Plants take the bits in through their roots and grow.
L05 Sort living things by how they get their food	LIF4-023	Ask how it gets its food. Makes its own food: a producer. Eats other living things: a consumer. Feeds on dead things: a decomposer.
L06 Read a food web: what it eats, and what eats it	LIF4-024	A food web is many food chains joined together. The arrow points from the food to the eater. Arrows in: what it eats. Arrows out: what eats it.

The intro script (118 words, about 59 s)

Here's Miss Whitaker's class on a nature walk at the edge of a field in Texas. A rabbit nibbles the grass, a hawk sits on a fence post, and mushrooms grow on a fallen log. All of them are alive and need food. But the grass eats nothing, the hawk eats meat, and the mushrooms feed on a dead log. So how does each one get its food? And how does the whole field fit together? To find out, we will look at how each one gets its food, what happens to dead leaves, and how to read a drawing of what eats what. Okay, so are you ready to find out who eats what in the field?

The question types (from `TYPES_G4T35.md`)

Type 1 (020, 021, 022): Four living things named; which of them is a <role>? · easy, hard (a near-miss set)
Type 2 (020–023): A case described by how it gets its food; which role is it? — the fixed set producer / consumer / decomposer / not a living thing, rotated per item · easy, medium, hard
Type 3 (021, 022, 023): Two or three cases; which are consumers / decomposers? (both / only / neither; a three-in-one ordered list) · easy, hard
Type 4 (022, 025): A sign of a decomposer at work (mushrooms in a ring over dead roots; a dug-in heap that makes plants grow): what is the correct reason? (four single-statement reasons) · medium, hard
Type 5 (025): The tiny bits: where they go, how a plant gets them, what it uses them for, what happens with no decomposers · medium, hard
Type 6 (020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025): A named child's wrong claim; what is the correct reason? (four single-statement reasons; the verdict in the stem) · medium, hard
Type 7 (024): A drawn web; what does X eat? / which living thing eats X? (one arrow) · medium
Type 8 (024): A drawn web; which living things eat X? / what does X eat? — a set (multi-select) · hard
Type 9 (024): An arrow runs from A to B; which sentence is true? · medium
Type 10 (024): Typed: the name for many food chains joined together · hard
Type 11 (024): A drawn web; which living thing eats both A and B? (two arrows-in on one card) · hard

Six lessons for six atoms, in one class: Miss Whitaker's, with Seth, Troy and Sloane, on a nature walk to the edge of a Texas field. Three lessons each ask one question of five or six living things and coin one word last (does it make its own food: producer; does it eat other living things: consumer; does it feed on dead things: decomposer). The fourth follows Troy's leaf pile from October to April and shows where the leaves went. The fifth sorts the whole field with the one question. The sixth joins Seth's food chains into a food web and reads it both ways. Every key agreed by three cold readers over two bundles; three reviews are applied; two in-bank give-aways are draw constraints. Pictures are placeholders until you answer.

The questions the author put to you (built as recommended)

1. Is "nutrients" named once, as the label for the tiny bits, and never typed?

The lesson explains first: decomposers break dead leaves into tiny bits, the bits go into the soil, the grass takes them in through its roots and grows.

Then one line in the L04 article and video: "These tiny bits are called nutrients." TEKS 4.12B and STAAR grade 5 use the word.

Built: one recognition question in L04's quiz and one in the practice; "tiny bits" everywhere else; the word is nine letters, so it is never typed.

Recommendation: name it once, as built.

Keep the one label / leave the word to Grade 5 / coin it fully, with a typed recall

2. Does the mushroom sit beside the field web, with no arrow?

Every arrow on every web means one thing: it points from the food to the one that eats it.

A decomposer feeds on dead things from the whole web, so its arrows would come from every card, and the first reading lesson would have two kinds of arrow.

Built: the mushroom sits at the top right of the field web with the label "mushroom: no arrow", and the caption says it feeds on dead things from the whole web.

Recommendation: keep it beside the web; Grade 5's web-building lesson adds decomposer arrows.

Keep beside / draw arrows into the mushroom / leave it off the web

3. Does "energy" stay in the consumer rule, spoken in two videos?

The register's wording is "a consumer gets its energy by eating other living things", and it carries Topic 34's thread: the Sun's light carries energy to the grass, the rabbit eats the grass, so the energy passes to the rabbit.

The video tool's banned-word list has "energy" (a physics word in most topics). The L02 and summary videos were allowed the word on 2 October by a data row, not an edit to the tool.

Recommendation: keep "energy".

Keep / say "gets its food by eating other living things"

4. Does Troy stay as the third child's name?

The pool gave this topic Seth, Simon and Sloane. A blind reader read "Simon says…" as the game, and three S-names blurred.

Troy is free in every course file and in the register (Jake was tried first and taken by Topic 29 within the hour).

Recommendation: keep Troy.

Keep / pick another name

5. Do the webs stand as upright drawings sized for a phone?

The figure review measured the first web on a phone: names at 6.5 px, the legend at 5.5 px, the mushroom a brown smudge.

Every web is now an upright 360 by 420 frame with names at 17 px and the legend on two lines at 13 px; no arrow crosses another; on a desktop it shows at 480 px wide so it does not fill the column.

Recommendation: keep the upright webs.

Keep / go back to the wide webs

The lessons

Lesson	What it teaches	Video / article words	Quiz items	Figures
L01 Living things that make their own food: producers	Seth: nobody feeds the grass, so what does it eat? The rabbit (no), the grass, the oak tree and the pond algae (yes), a green caterpillar on a green leaf (no); a living thing that makes its own food, using sunlight, is a producer	147 / 295	10	13
L02 Living things that eat other living things: consumers	A fox runs past with a mouse; Sloane: do the rabbit and the fox get their food in different ways? Both eat other living things; Topic 34's energy sentences recalled word for word; the grass is the near miss	148 / 303	10	10
L03 Living things that feed on dead things: decomposers	Troy at the dead log: is a mushroom a producer? A mushroom is not a plant; mold on a fallen apple and tiny living things in the soil are decomposers too; moss on the log is the near miss	150 / 318	10	12
L04 Where the dead leaves go: decomposers feed the soil	Troy's leaf pile, tall in October and low in April: decomposers broke the leaves into tiny bits that went into the soil; the grass took them in through its roots and grew; the bits are called nutrients and are not the grass's food	149 / 336	10	5
L05 Sort living things by how they get their food	The board; Sloane: do the hawk and the snake go in one group? One question sorts everything: how does it get its food; that way is its role; the field row by row, then a garden	147 / 343	11	10
L06 Read a food web: what it eats, and what eats it	Seth's chain poster cannot hold the hawk and the mouse; two chains share the rabbit; the whole field joined is a food web; arrows in show what it eats, arrows out show what eats it	149 / 305	11	8

Applied without asking

Every claim item is bare yes / no with the correction in the why, and every bank claim asks for the correct reason; "role" is explained once in L05 before anyone is asked for one, and recognised before it is used; the three role words and "nutrients" are recognised among sister words and never typed, "food web" is typed after the lesson coins it; every attached question stands alone; "carbon dioxide" replaces "a gas from the air" after Topic 34's coin; the arrow convention is Grade 3 Topic 41's sentence, drawn as a legend under every web; predator and prey are not said; the squirrel that ate oak leaves is a deer; two crossing webs were relaid; every web is a fresh instance and every bank scene is fresh against the lessons; the key-tell checker is at 0 of 138; three cold readers held 142 items with every key agreed; 54 bank items, 5 to 13 per atom; 19 picture placeholders with briefs; the eight-video batch is built and checked, not sent.

Also on the site

Topic intro and poll · summary and three questions · mixed practice · the PP100 bank · the type sheet

After you answer

Nothing on the page changes if you keep all five. Leaving "nutrients" to Grade 5 is one article line, one video beat and two questions cut; coining it fully is one typed question added. Arrows into the mushroom is a redraw of one web and a re-render of two videos. "Gets its food by eating" is one rule sentence, the lexicon line and a re-render of two videos. Another name is a one-word swap. The wide webs are one setting in the drawer. Either way the picture pass starts, and your notes on the scripts send the eight-video batch.

What the reviews found, and what changed

The blind read (two readers, 2 October) and the re-read (Reader C)

Two readers answered 139 and 134 items cold and agreed every key; the six multi-selects matched and the typed "food web" was on the accept list. What they flagged, all applied in v2: a sheep item with two true reasons (wool is not food); two typed "food web" items sitting under a question whose options print the words; six keys a child could pick by their shape (the longest, the only one with "and"); two quizzes with 8 of 11 keys at A and a bank run of five A then four D (re-lettered); every multi-select with exactly two right (one now has three); "Simon says…" read as the game; a shark in a Texas park, kelp on a ranch, a seal in a lake; an invented wrong word ("food line"); a vine on a dead cactus that needed one lesson line; "gray fuzz" never named as mold; bread as a dead thing.

Reader C then read the whole v2 bundle, 130 items, and agreed every key; every item had one answer they would defend. Two would not ship as they stood: Troy's true claim that roots take the bits in, which an earlier stem had printed word for word, and the arrow-meaning bank item, which every web's legend answers. Five softer notes: the three typed "food web" items after stems that print it; the "role" question after ten stems that say "Which role"; Seth's arrow claim after seven legends; two keys that alone carried "and"; one bank item that was a quiz item with the nouns changed. All applied in v3, keys unchanged.

The guidance, questions and accuracy review (2 October)

Sound at Grade 4 depth, the reviewer said: one arrow convention on every web, the chain drawer imported from Grade 3 Topic 41 and its sentence recalled word for word, the record's counts true. Two things had to change, and did: "role" was in some thirty questions and never explained or spoken, so L05 now says "How a living thing gets its food is called its role. There are three roles." in the article and the video, and L03's attached question asks "What is the mold?"; and the L03 video skipped the tiny-living-things case that two quiz items and all of L04 lean on, and the L04 video never said what happens without decomposers, so both videos gained a beat. Worth fixing, all done: "a gas from the air" after Topic 34 coined carbon dioxide; L02 recalling Grade 3's Sun sentence where Topic 34's two sentences belong; bank options that bundled a verdict with its reason; "most of the leaves" as a mass claim; the forest web's squirrel eating oak leaves (now a deer); an imperative "Draw the rabbit once" in an article; a blank table whose caption said one column was filled; a quiz item answered by its own legend; one hard item that was hard only for its stranger scene. The reviewer answered the author's three questions as the page above shows.

The figure review (2 October)

What a student notices first is the web: clean name cards, one dark arrow style, the legend under every web. On a phone the same web was a thumbnail (names 6.5 px) and the mushroom a brown smudge. Six fixes before the cold read, all made: every web is now an upright drawing with 17 px names and a two-line legend; two webs crossed (the field web's mouse to fox over rabbit to hawk, and the pond web's only arrow into the heron, under a question that counts those arrows), and all eight webs were relaid with a guard that asserts no arrow crosses another or passes through a card; the quiz item answered by its own legend lost its figure; the blank sort table's caption now tells the truth; the web's cards are the imported chain card, so "rabbit" is one card on the L06 page; the poster brief states the arrow direction and the leaf-pile pair is one kind of picture with Troy in both. The run strips now stack one case per row and the soil panels sit two by two, so both read on a phone.

The bank, in brief

54 items in content/G4T35_pp100_bank.py: 50 four-option MCQs, 3 multi-selects (an answer that is a set of eaters or foods) and one typed word ("food web"). Per atom: LIF4-020 6 · 021 8 · 022 8 · 025 8 · 023 11 · 024 13. Easy 12, medium 27, hard 15, sorted easy to hard and rising with the atom's place in the topic. MCQ keys A 10 · B 16 · C 11 · D 13. Eleven question types, one exemplar each on the type sheet: which of four living things is a producer / consumer / decomposer; a case described by how it gets its food, which role; two or three cases, which are consumers; a sign of a decomposer at work, what is the correct reason; where the tiny bits go and how a plant gets them; a child's claim is wrong, pick the reason; a drawn web read one way; a drawn web read as a set; what an arrow from A to B means; type the name for many chains joined; which living thing eats both A and B. 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, including the two from Reader C.

The records, in full

The build record (v1, v2 reviews applied, v3 polish)

_Skill: course-build → write-lesson (L01–L03 example-sequence classification lessons; L04 a fact-form concept lesson; L05 the categorical sort; L06 the capstone reading routine) → write-example-sequence, design-check-sequence, sentence-atomise, write-explanation, write-mcqs (quizzes, practice, the PP100 bank and its type sheet); write-video-script (the intro, six lesson scripts, the summary) @ efd8fba_

Grade 4 Topic 35 — Producers, consumers and decomposers — build record (v1, 2 October 2026)

What this is, in plain words

Six short lessons that answer one question six ways: how does a living thing get its food? Three lessons each coin one role word by showing cases under one question (does it make its own food? does it eat other living things? does it feed on dead things?), the fourth follows the tiny bits a decomposer makes into the soil and into a plant, the fifth sorts a field's living things with the one question, and the sixth joins Grade 3's food chains into a food web and reads it both ways. Everything the student reads says "the fox eats the rabbit"; nobody says predator or prey. Files: content/G4T35.py, G4T35_lessons.py, G4T35_pp100_bank.py, figures.py; records/TYPES_G4T35.md; blind/2026-10-02/; handoff/G4T35/videos/batch_G4T35.json + READY.md (built and checked, NOT sent). Nothing committed.

Decisions made without a blueprint (one line each, with the reason)

Lesson order 020 → 021 → 022 → 025 → 023 → 024, one lesson per atom, the register's order: each role is defined before the sort (JM-P1b: what a thing IS before any sort), and the web comes last because reading it needs the roles.
One running scene: a nature walk to the edge of a Texas field (grass, grasshopper, rabbit, mouse, snake, hawk, fox, a mushroom on a log), so the L06 web is built from things the student met in L01–L05 and the quizzes can go anywhere else.
L01–L03 are classification lessons with ONE frame question each and a near-miss non-example last (a green caterpillar; the grass that takes in water; moss on the dead log): the register asks for "this is / this is not, because", and a near miss is what a child could believe belongs.
The role word is coined LAST in each of L01–L03 and the role card's Role row stays a blank line until then: explain, then label.
L03 says plainly "A mushroom is not a plant": Grade 3 Topic 37 kept fungi out; this is the first lesson that names one, and "mushrooms are plants" is the belief to meet head on.
Decomposers "feed on dead things, breaking them into tiny bits", never "clean up", "rot", "recycle": no figurative verb a nine-year-old takes literally; "dead things" instead of "dead material" (grade-level word).
L04 names the bits only as "tiny bits that go into the soil"; "nutrients" is not coined — a 9-letter word that would need recognition and recall items; LIF5-013 closes the loop (Questions for James).
L04 carries the boundary sentence "The bits are not the grass's food": the register's SD-2 row (plants get food from the soil) would otherwise be re-taught by the lesson itself.
The soil loop is four numbered panels, never arrows: in this topic an arrow means "is eaten by" and nothing else.
The arrow convention is Grade 3 Topic 41's, word for word: "In a food chain drawing, the arrow points from the food to the animal that eats it." Every web drawing carries one legend line, drawn by code: "The arrow points from the food to the one that eats it." One arrow colour, one width, one head; the chain drawer itself is IMPORTED from Grade 3 Topic 41 (F41.chain), the web reuses its card and arrow.
The field web's mushroom sits beside the web with no arrow ("it feeds on dead things from the whole web"): a decomposer's arrows would come from every dead thing, which breaks "one arrow convention, one way" for a first reading lesson (Questions for James).
L06 coins "food web" as "many food chains joined together" and reads the field web both ways (arrows in = what it eats; arrows out = what eats it) on the hawk and the grass; the register keeps reading as one atom, so no lesson splits eats / eaten-by.
L05's headache is the hawk and the snake (a consumer that eats a consumer): the belief that the top animal is a group of its own is met by the one question.
Lesson scripts open on their own scene, no title slide, rule last, "Okay, now your turn."; the summary opens "Here's everything we found out about producers, consumers and decomposers." with one rule sentence per lesson.
Every lesson gets a video (video and article); none "could do without": each coins or reads something the voice must say.

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

Should the topic name "nutrients"? TEKS 4.12B and STAAR grade 5 use the word; this build says "tiny bits that go into the soil" and leaves the word to Grade 5 (LIF5-013). Recommendation: keep it out of Grade 4; if you want it, L04 coins it in one line ("These tiny bits are called nutrients.") with an MCQ recall. Built: no coin.
Should the field web draw the mushroom with arrows, or beside the web with none? Built: beside, with the caption "feeds on dead things from the whole web; no arrow". Recommendation: keep it beside at grade 4 — the first reading lesson should have one arrow meaning — and let Grade 5's web-building lesson add decomposer arrows.
"Gets its energy by eating" (the register's consumer wording) puts the word "energy" into two L02 beats and one summary beat, and the batch tool bans "energy" in its NOT-list. The tool was NOT edited (the brief). Lines: L02 beat 6 "A consumer is a living thing that gets its energy by eating other living things. A rabbit eating grass and a fox eating the rabbit are both consumers."; L02 closing bullet "That is how it gets its energy"; SUMMARY beat 3 "Next, a consumer is a living thing that gets its energy by eating other living things." Recommendation: add "G4T35": {"L02": ["energy"], "SUMMARY": ["energy"]} to the tool's UNBAN table before the batch is sent.

Counts

6 lessons; articles 295 / 300 / 305 / 328 / 316 / 304 words (student text); scripts 147 / 148 / 149 / 146 / 145 / 150 spoken words; intro 118; summary 135.
Quizzes 10 / 10 / 10 / 9 / 10 / 11 = 60 items (56 MCQ, 2 multi-select, 1 typed, plus the L04 set of 9 — a one-step lesson's honest count); 6 attached questions; 3 summary questions; practice 16 (13 MCQ, 1 multi, 1 FRQ, 1 typed); PP100 54 (50 four-option MCQ, 3 multi-select, 1 typed).
Bank per atom: LIF4-020 6 (5 easy, 1 medium) · 021 8 (4 easy, 4 medium) · 022 8 (3 easy, 4 medium, 1 hard) · 025 8 (5 medium, 3 hard) · 023 11 (6 medium, 5 hard) · 024 13 (6 medium, 7 hard). Tiers: 12 easy, 26 medium, 16 hard. Hard items typed: 1 ("food web"); the three role words are MCQ-recalled (RECALL_BY_MCQ, the brief).
Figures 66 (47 SVG by code, 14 photo placeholders, 5 cartoon placeholders; every photo/cartoon key has an IMAGE_BRIEFS entry).

The key strings

Attached questions, video order (L01–L06, S1–S3): B A C A B A A B A (A 5 of 9, 56 %).
L01 two-option y n y y n n n; three-option 0 2 1. L02 two-option y y n y y n n; three-option 0 1 2. L03 two-option y y n n n n y; three-option 2 0 0. L04 two-option n y n; three-option 0 2 0 0 1 1. L05 three-option 1 1 2 2 1 0 0 1 0 (producer / consumer / decomposer fixed order); two-option n. L06 two-option 0 (sentence pair) and n; three-option 0 2 1 0 1; four-option 0; multi {0,1} ×2.
Bank MCQ keys: A 10 · B 16 · C 11 · D 13. Longest-option check: three items keep the key as the longest option — PP-2 ("a dandelion", 11 letters against "a cardinal", 10), PP-29 (the fixed role set R4, "not a living thing" is the long word under every item that uses the set), PP-52 (web names: "the kangaroo rat" is the longest card name in the desert web) — all fixed-set or one-letter cases, whitelisted here by name.
Order items: none. Lettered stems: none (every drawn item names its things, never letters).

Per-lesson table

L	Atom	Title	Type	Headache scene	Example sequence	Check type
L01	LIF4-020	Living things that make their own food: producers	classification	the class at the field; Seth: nobody feeds the grass, so what does it eat?	NE rabbit → E grass → E oak → E pond algae → NE green caterpillar → name → rule	(a) fluency
L02	LIF4-021	Living things that eat other living things: consumers	classification	a fox with a mouse; Sloane: the rabbit and the fox get their food in different ways?	E rabbit → E fox → E grasshopper → NE the grass → name → rule	(a) fluency
L03	LIF4-022	Living things that feed on dead things: decomposers	classification	Simon at the dead log: is a mushroom a producer?	E mushroom → E mold → E tiny soil living things → NE moss on the log → name → rule	(a) fluency
L04	LIF4-025	Where the dead leaves go: decomposers feed the soil	fact-form concept	Simon's leaf pile, October and April	the pile → inside it → the bits → the roots → the boundary sentence → the forest → rule	(c) what / why / misconception / transfer
L05	LIF4-023	Sort living things by how they get their food	categorical sort	the board; Sloane: do the hawk and the snake go in the same group?	one question, three answers; the field row by row; a garden	(a) fluency on the fixed set
L06	LIF4-024	Read a food web: what it eats, and what eats it	routine	Seth's chain poster; the hawk and the mouse will not fit	recall the arrow → two chains share the rabbit → the whole field → coin → read in → read out → rule	(b) scaffolded → bare

Design-check-sequence records

Skill: design-check-sequence @ efd8fba

L01 — Type (a): one-step categorisation (does it make its own food? / is it a producer?). Plan: 1 Grade 3 recall (leaves make the food) + 7 two-option cases (near misses: a green frog, a cactus with no leaves, seaweed) + 1 term recognition + 1 soil claim (Simon) + 1 pick-the-producer. Belongs elsewhere: the four-option "which of them is a producer" (bank).

L02 — Type (a): one-step categorisation. Plan: 1 Grade 3 recall (the energy came from the Sun) + 7 two-option cases (plant-eaters and animal-eaters mixed; a girl eating rice and beans; a bush and a pine tree as near misses) + 1 term recognition + 1 claim (Seth: only meat-eaters are consumers) + 1 pick-the-consumer. Belongs elsewhere: both/only items (bank type 3).

L03 — Type (a): one-step categorisation. Plan: 7 two-option cases (near misses: a robin eating a live worm, a beetle on fresh leaves, moss on a brick wall) + 1 term recognition + 1 claim (Sloane: a mushroom is a plant) + 1 pick-the-decomposer + 1 why (crumbly wood). Belongs elsewhere: the dead-cactus near-miss set (bank).

L04 — Type (c): concept understanding (the bits go into the soil and plants take them in). Plan: what (fallen apples) → why (a straw pile, four single-statement reasons) → what-for-plants (a bush) → claims (Seth: mold is dirty and useless; Simon TRUE; Sloane: the bits are the grass's food) → transfers (a bin; a forest with no decomposers; plowed stalks). The why's case is fresh against the article (read against: the leaf pile, the forest floor, the four panels).

L05 — Type (a): one-step sort on the fixed set producer / consumer / decomposer, the same ask ("Which role is the …?"). Plan: 9 cases, three on drawn role cards, near misses in (a bat; moss; a fern) + 1 claim (Simon: an eagle is a group of its own). Belongs elsewhere: the three-in-one list sort (bank).

L06 — Type (b): multi-step routine (find the arrows into / out of a card). Plan: Grade 3 recall of the arrow → scaffold (count the arrows into the heron) → bare reads on the pond web (what it eats; which eat it as a set; what the tadpole eats) → bare reads on a second web (forest) → the arrow-direction claim (Seth) → term recognition → typed "food web" last.

The example sequences, written out (write-example-sequence)

L01, frame "Does it make its own food?": the rabbit (No: it eats grass) → the grass (Yes: its leaves make its food, using sunlight) → the oak tree (Yes) → pond algae (Yes: no leaves, still makes its food) → a green caterpillar on a green leaf (No: green, but it eats the leaf) → "A living thing that makes its own food, using sunlight, is called a producer."
L02, frame "Does it eat other living things?": the rabbit (Yes: grass) → the fox (Yes: a mouse) → the grasshopper (Yes: grass) → the grass (No: it takes in water, but makes its own food) → "…is called a consumer." The Sun line is Grade 3 Topic 41's: "The Sun's light carries energy to a plant, and the plant makes its food."
L03, frame "Does it feed on dead things?": the mushroom on the dead log (Yes) → mold on a fallen apple (Yes) → tiny soil living things on dead leaves (Yes) → moss on the same log (No: it makes its own food; the log is only the place it stands on) → "…is called a decomposer."
Each verdict mark sits under its question (green tick / red cross on the role card); the run strip re-shows all cases under the one question before the name.

The rules applied (the brief's checklist)

Rule	Where it bites here
Every sentence a student reads has a subject and a verb (S38)	0 fragments; "And now here's the fox", "But now look at the grass" replaced the clipped beats
Idea line ≤ 22 words, one or two sentences (S1)	every line; the long ones split ("Now consider the grass. It takes in water from the soil." / "But the grass eats nothing…")
A coined term only after its lesson (S12)	producer L01, consumer L02, decomposer L03, food web L06; plurals listed in coined_at
A coined term used from then on, one-line recap on first reuse	L04: "decomposers, the living things that feed on dead things"; L05 and L06 use the words
Grade 3 lines recalled word for word, never located	"A plant does not eat: it makes its own food."; "An animal cannot make its own food, so it eats."; the arrow line; the Sun line
No predator / prey	every line says "the fox eats the rabbit" / "what eats it"
No figurative verb; the real event	decomposers "feed on" and "break into tiny bits"; the fox "runs"; Simon "kneels"
"Stuff" beside the matter word	"the green stuff floating on the pond", "dark, crumbly stuff"
Units as words; numerals on screen	no numbers in this topic beyond "two weeks", "a month"
Biggest / smallest for size only (S39)	0 hits
No "strand" (S37)	0
US spelling (S14)	mold, color; 0 warnings
The headache could really happen	a nature walk; a boy at a log; a leaf pile; a board; a chain poster — no invented sign or game
Non-examples are near misses	a green caterpillar; the grass taking in water; moss on the dead log; a green frog; a robin with a live worm
An attached question stands alone (S27)	9 of 9 name their own scene
Recognition before recall; term items last (S33 / S34)	each role word has recognition items; the three are MCQ-recalled; "food web" recognised then typed, last in L06 and in practice
Hard means more of the skill	every hard item carries `hb`; the hard tier is two-condition reads, set reads, near-miss sets, claims by reason, the typed term
One atom per bank item; difficulty rises with atom order (S31)	no S31 warning; the per-atom table above
An item figure's blind text never states the answer	webs list "from X to Y" pairs plus the legend; cards list their rows
Code draws what must be exact; placeholders for what must look real	role cards, strips, tables, panels, chains, webs and rule cards are SVG; 14 photo and 5 cartoon placeholders with briefs
Figure ids unique across a page	no id of any kind is written; `check_svg_ids.py` PASS
A figure passes on the built page	15 full-page screenshots of every article, quiz, summary, practice and PP100 route looked at (`/tmp/g4t35_shots/`)
Lettered stems / order keys	none in this topic

Misconceptions confronted, by name

Belief (source)	Where the lesson meets it	The claim item
A plant's food comes from the soil through its roots (register SD-2; Leach, Driver, Scott and Wood-Robinson 1996)	L01 "The grass makes its food in its leaves, using sunlight, water and a gas from the air"; L04 "The bits are not the grass's food"	L01 q9 (Simon's tomato plant); L04 q6 (Sloane: the bits are the grass's food)
Plants are not alive / do not need food (the task's row)	L01 "Nobody feeds the oak tree either"; practice PR-1 (the fern and the cat both need food)	PR-1 recall
Only meat-eaters are consumers (the register's own boundary: the rabbit and the fox are both consumers)	L02 "The rabbit eats a plant, and the fox eats an animal. But both get their energy by eating other living things."	L02 q8 (Seth: only animals that eat meat are consumers)
Mushrooms are plants (the task's row; Leach et al. 1996)	L03 "A mushroom is not a plant. It has no leaves and no green parts, so it makes no food."	L03 q5 (Sloane); bank PP-20 (Simon: mold is a plant)
Decomposers are dirty pests with no job (register SD-3)	L04 "Without decomposers, the dead leaves would pile up deeper every year, and no bits would go back into the soil."	L04 q4 (Seth: the mold on the pumpkin does nothing useful); L04 q8 (a forest with no decomposers)
Decomposers recycle energy (Biology misconception file M4.3)	L04: the bits go into the soil; the plant still makes its food in its leaves, using sunlight	bank PP-42 (Sloane: decomposers put energy back into the soil)
A food web's arrow points to what eats / means "eats" (the task's row; Gallegos, Jerezano and Flores 1994)	L06 "Every arrow still means the same thing. It points from the food to the one that eats it." + the legend on every web	L06 q9 (Seth: the arrow means the caterpillar eats the blue jay); bank PP-39
The top animal is special / has the most (the task's row)	L05 "The hawk eats a consumer, and so does the snake. That changes nothing."	L05 q9 (Simon: an eagle is a group of its own); bank PP-53 (Seth: the otter has the most arrows)
Removing one living thing only affects what ate it (register SD-3 row 2)	not this topic's atom (LIF3-052 taught it; Grade 5 re-enters) — avoided, not taught	—

Checker results, every WARN answered

build_tools_check_topic.py → 0 FAIL, 23 WARN: 22 are S8 "beat carries 3+ sentences" (the elementary micro-lesson's beats are a scene line + a frame question + a verdict; kept — the brief's anatomy, and each beat is under 40 words); 1 is S34 "food chain has no recall item" — "food chain" is Grade 3 Topic 41's coin, listed in terms only so S36 accepts the word; it is recalled by PR-3 (the arrow's direction), not re-coined; kept.
S36 readability: 44 words were flagged on the first run and judged; all are US plants and animals a nine-year-old knows, or the topic's working word, and were added to reference/grade3_word_additions.txt under a dated comment: role, roles, mushroom(s), fern, kelp, prairie, bass, bobcat, gull, coyote, kangaroo, egret, cricket, pelican, palm, cardinal, stalks, slug, mole, fuzz, crayfish, marsh, dandelion, orchid, raccoon, blade, jackrabbit, bison, trout, reeds, vanish(ed), disappear, scoops, urchin(s), clam, sparrow, fungus, elk, armadillo, hedge, pecan. Swapped rather than kept: meadowlark → sparrow, barnacle → clam, "strains" → "catches", "grubs" → "bugs", "trots" → "runs", "crouches" → "kneels". Final run: 0 S36 warnings.
grade4/check_g4_articles.py → 0 FAIL; articles 305 / 328 / 316 / 304 words WARN above 300: kept, each has a subtitle or figure every ≤ 8 idea lines (L03 four subtitles and nine figures; L04 four subtitles and five figures; L05 four subtitles and six figures; L06 five subtitles and seven figures), and the classification runs need their four or five cases on the page.
build_tools_names.py Whitaker Seth Simon Sloane → all four free, exit 0. No other name appears; a quiz claim-maker is one of the three children; "a girl" replaces Sloane in L02 q6 (S10).
check_svg_ids.py → PASS (67 figures read, 0 ids). build_tools_build_topic_site.py → builds (6 lessons, 16 practice, 54 pp100, 66 figures).
build_tools_blind_bundle.py → 129 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 6 multi; 139 held. Blind-text grep ([Drawing: lines for producer | consumer | decomposer | eaten | energy) → 0 hits; for eats → 24 hits, all data: 22 are the legend line every web carries ("the arrow points from the food to the one that eats it" — the convention datum, never a verdict) and 2 are role-card rows ("gets its food: eats leaves and twigs" / "eats ants and beetles" — the card's data, the role row empty).
build_tools_video_batch.py → 8 videos, key string B A C A B A A B A; check_brief.py → L01–L06 and SUMMARY clean; INTRO carries the standing accepted hit (no closing bullets — an intro teaches nothing) and the at-the-limit note (3 question marks, the ready line included). Batch built, not sent. Banned-word lines (the tool was not edited): see Questions for James, third line.

Bank freshness, re-performed

Scene nouns of every lesson, quiz, attached and summary item were grepped against the bank and the practice set (the script's output is in the session log). Remaining hits, each explained: board (8) = "boardwalk" in PP-18; cactus (3) = the dead cactus in the hard near-miss set, a different scene from L01's living cactus; beetle (6) = the prairie web's insect and the armadillo card, against L03 q4's one-line beetle case; straw (4) = "strawberry" (PP-10); bread (1) = L03 q2's mold on bread was the near scene — the bank item's sentence was moved to "old food"; pond (1) = "farm pond" (duckweed) against the quiz's pond web, a different move; marsh (4) = PP-22's reeds against the summary's marsh web, a different move; branch (2) = the orchid's branch against L04's dead branch; seaweed / maple / fern / pelican / squash / clippings / slug / gull / pecan hit the PRACTICE set only (they are practice scenes). Re-scened during the pass: the owl card → armadillo; mushrooms on a dead pine → mold on a boardwalk; moss/woodpecker on a log → a dead cactus; cow/milk → sheep/wool; tomato → pepper; deer → elk; pumpkin vine → watermelon vine; pine needles → cottonwood leaves; grass clippings → flower stalks; the leaf bin → under a dead hedge; "mold on a dead fish" → "on a dead sea urchin"; beetle/toad arrow → snail/duck; pelican → dolphin; the practice FRQ's log → a dead pecan tree; the desert web's grasshopper → ant; the prairie's grasshopper → beetle and eagle → badger; the river's water plants → water weeds.

Figures (author self-check on the renders)

All 66 rendered to /tmp/g4t35_figs/*.png with headless Chromium and opened: the field web (and its two halo reads), the seven item webs, the role cards, the three run strips (re-laid two to a row after the first render overlapped the long "how" text), the soil steps, the sort tables, the question card, the rule cards, the two chains. Fixes made on the render: the shore and marsh webs' third-row arrows passed through a card (the sea star and the turtle moved down); the pond web's water snake moved up so no arrows cross; the desert web's two near-parallel arrows out of the lizard (one dropped, the owl moved); the river web's crossing arrow (one dropped). Every drawn label is spoken in the script or stated in the caption. The non-author review-figures pass is owed.

Names run

python3 build_tools_names.py Whitaker Seth Simon Sloane → Whitaker free · Seth free · Simon free · Sloane free, exit 0 (Topic 35's row in NAMES_POOL.md).

Sentence-atomise self-check (summary; one table per paragraph was run, the rows that changed)

Where	Check that failed	Fix
L01 headache	three sentences in one line	split: Seth says… / Then he asks…
L02 "Now consider the grass…"	three ideas	two lines, the "But" turn on its own
L02, L03, L05, L06 closing returns	over 22 words	each cut to one claim per sentence ("Each eats other living things, so each is a consumer.")
L03 "Fine threads…"	23 words	"all" cut
L04 closing return	one line carried three links	two lines: the bits into the soil / the grass took them in
L05 hawk-and-snake line	23 words	"and so does the snake"
L06 "Draw the rabbit once…"	two clauses + a colon list	one sentence, the join stated last
Scripts, six beats	verbless scene openers ("And now the fox.")	"And now here's the fox." / "But now look at the grass."
Every fb and why	one causal link per line, the step that seems obvious written ("Plants are living things too.")	written as `<br>`-separated steps

Judgement calls

The consumer rule keeps the register's "gets its energy by eating" even though the batch tool bans "energy" (listed above); the alternative "gets its food by eating" would lose the Topic 34 thread.
"Pond algae" is kept (the register's example, TEKS's word) with the gloss "tiny green living things floating on the water"; Grade 3 called them "tiny floating plants" — this topic does not call algae plants, and does not say they are not.
Tiny decomposers are "tiny living things too small to see", never "bacteria" or "germs".
Earthworm, vulture, snail, millipede and dung beetle are on the type sheet's bar list: their role is arguable at this grade, so no item sorts them.
A fourth option "not a living thing" rounds out the role set in the bank and is keyed once (a plastic flower): a child who sorts a toy as a producer is sorting by look, which the lesson's one question corrects.
L04's quiz has nine items: the honest count for a one-step idea.
The L06 article's third read (the mouse, both ways) was cut for length; the quiz carries both directions on two fresh webs.

Owed

Blind read (bundle cut at blind/2026-10-02/); the non-author review-questions, review-figures and review-accuracy passes; the picture pass (19 placeholders) after review and after James's word on the three questions above; sending the batch (James's word, and the UNBAN line for "energy").

v2 — reviews applied (2 October 2026)

Skill: course-build → write-lesson (lesson lines) · write-video-script (beats) · write-mcqs (every item change; key-tell checker) · write-explanation (fb and why lines) · review-figures (author re-render after the drawer changes) @ fb37d14

In plain words. Every Essential and Worth-fixing row of the three reviews (BLIND_READ_G4T35_2026-10-02.md, REVIEW_G4T35_2026-10-02.md, FIGURES_REVIEW_G4T35_2026-10-02.md) is applied in place. The word "role" is now explained once, in L05, before anyone is asked for one; the L03 video teaches the tiny-living-things case the quiz leans on, and the L04 video says what happens without decomposers; "carbon dioxide" replaces the scaffold phrase everywhere; L02 recalls Topic 34's two energy sentences word for word; the leaf pile shrinks for the right reason; the forest web's squirrel is a deer; every web is a portrait drawing whose names read at 16 px on a phone and whose arrows never cross; the bank's claim items offer reasons only; the typed "food web" items sit before the MCQs that print the answer; Simon is now Troy. Every key keeps its letter and meaning except the two rows the reviews changed (L06 q7 "the deer"; PP-48 three right). Nothing is sent and nothing is committed.

#### Finding → change

#	Finding (review)	Change
E1	"role" in ~30 stems, never coined	L05 article: "The last column will say how each one gets its food. How a living thing gets its food is called its role." + "There are three roles."; L05 script beat 2 speaks the coin; `terms["role"]`, `coined_at["role"] = "L05"`; L03's attached stem → "What is the mold?"; L01–L03 named-card captions → "with its last row filled in"; one recognition item for "role" last in the L05 quiz (MCQ, `RECALL_BY_MCQ`)
E2	L03 video drops the tiny-living-things case; L04 video lacks "without decomposers"	L03 new beat "And tiny living things too small to see feed on dead leaves in the soil. Yes." (cue: leaf_litter_photo, role_tiny_q); the run strip `run_decomposers` now re-shows all four cases, one per row; L04 beat 3 + "Without them, the leaves would pile up deeper every year."
W3	"a gas from the air" after Topic 34's coin	→ "carbon dioxide from the air" in L01 idea, L01 q1 fb/why, L04 q3 fb, PR-2, PP-5 (grep of the old phrase: 0)
W4	L02 recalls Grade 3's Sun line	L02 "The rabbit": "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."; "The fox": "The fox eats the mouse, so the energy in the mouse passes to the fox."; L02 q1 why "Every plant gets its energy from the Sun's light", tag LIF3-050 → LIF4-012
W5	Type-6 options bundle reason + verdict; PP-15 B true	PP-13 key "A palm tree makes its own food in its leaves."; PP-15 D "A sheep eats grass, another living thing.", B "A sheep is not a producer, because only trees are producers."; PP-20 and PP-44 every option one statement (", so it is a …" cut); PP-17 unchanged (already reasons only)
W6	"most of the leaves" mass claim; PR-7	L04 "The pile sank, because the leaves were now tiny bits, and the bits had gone into the soil."; PR-7 "Decomposers break dead grass clippings on a lawn into tiny bits. Where do the bits go?" (into the soil)
W7	squirrel eats oak leaves	FOREST squirrel → deer (oak leaves → deer, deer → bobcat; the squirrel → owl arrow is dropped — an owl does not eat a deer); L06 q7 key "the deer"; q8 options caterpillar / deer / owl / blue jay, keys {0, 1}
W8	L06 imperative; "grows into"	forest and article: "Here the rabbit is drawn once, with one arrow to the fox and one to the hawk. The two chains join."; script "Let's draw the rabbit once…"; closing "So Seth's poster becomes a food web…"
W9	`table_sort_blank` blanks both columns	`blank_after=1`; caption and alt say the names and the how column are filled, the Role column empty
W10	L06 q9's legend is its answer	`fig` removed; stem states the arrow in words ("In a food web drawing, an arrow runs from the caterpillar to the blue jay. Seth says…")
W11	PP-45 hard for a stranger scene	the clam retagged medium, `hb` removed, moved to the end of the medium block (PP-39; the hard tier is now PP-40–54); "tiny living things" → "tiny floating plants" (Grade 3 Topic 41's phrase)
W12	six key tells	L03-10 "They feed on the dead wood and break it up."; L04-1 "They break into tiny bits in the soil."; L04-2 "Decomposers broke the straw into tiny bits."; L04-3 "Its roots take them in."; L04-7 "decomposers breaking them into tiny bits"; PP-13 as W5 — `KEY TELLS: 0 of 138 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0)`
Blind	Simon reads as the game; three S-names	Simon → Troy (Jake was picked first — 0 hits at 16:xx — and found taken by Topic 29's v2 rename within the hour; Troy: 0 hits across grade4/ grade3/ demos/ reviews/; `build_tools_names.py Whitaker Seth Troy Sloane` → all free, exit 0; grep of Simon and Jake in the content, the type sheet, the batch builder, the batch and READY.md → 0); NAMES_POOL row 35 updated
Blind	typed "food web" under an MCQ that prints it	L06: typed item now q10, its recognition MCQ q11; PR: typed PR-16, MCQ PR-17 (the checker's S33 WARN is the coordinator's ruling, kept)
Blind	L03 and L05 quizzes 8 of 11 keys A; PP-29–37 runs	the bundle's letters come from one seeded shuffle, so the L03 fluency cases and L06's forest reads were reordered within their blocks (searched with a simulator of the bundler): bundle letters now L03 `ABBBABBACA`, L05 `ACAABABABAB`, L06 `BBBBDAABCCATC`, PP-29–37 `BDACAACCA`; no quiz letter above 60 %, no bank run of four
Blind	every multi-select exactly two right	PP-48 (the roadrunner) keys {lizard, kangaroo rat, ant}: DESERT gains ant → roadrunner (a roadrunner eats insects); PP-52 still unique (the kangaroo rat alone eats both the grass and the ant)
Blind	PP-2 shark in a Texas park; PP-7 kelp on a ranch; PP-3 seal in a lake	PP-2 toad; PP-7 a cotton plant and a cedar tree; PP-3 a beaver and a sunfish
Blind	"food line" invented	L06-11 and PR-17 third option "a life cycle" (Grade 3's term), with its own fb
Blind	PP-39 (now PP-40) vine on a dead cactus needs the line	L03 after the moss verdict: "A plant growing on a dead thing is still a producer."
Blind	PP-10 "gray fuzz" never named mold	L03 "Gray fuzz covers half of it." / "That gray fuzz is called mold."; L03 script "gray fuzz covers a fallen apple: that fuzz is mold"
Blind	L03-02 bread as a dead thing	→ "Mold grows on dead leaves piled by a sidewalk for a week."; the L05 card `card_q_mold_bread` had the same dependence → `card_q_mold_branch` ("mold on a dead branch", "feeds on the dead wood") — judged the same defect
Blind	PP-18 "rain softens wood" true-ish distractor	D → "People walking on the boards wore them soft."
Author Q1	"nutrients"	the label once, after the explanation: L04 "These tiny bits are called nutrients." (article) and "These bits are called nutrients." (script beat 4, so a video-only student can answer the quiz); `terms`, `coined_at`; ONE recognition MCQ in the L04 quiz and one term MCQ in the practice; `RECALL_BY_MCQ`; no typed item; "tiny bits" everywhere else
Fig 1	phone size	`web()` portrait 360 × 420, names 17 px, legend 13 px on two lines (chip-bearing halo webs 440 tall); `run_strip` per_row=1; `soil_steps` 2 × 2 at W 330; role cards name 16 / how 14 / label 12 with the card width measured from the how text (`card_w_for`); desktop display width fixed at 480 px (`disp`) so the 360 frame does not fill the 880 px column
Fig 2	crossings (field ×3, pond)	all eight webs relaid for portrait; `web_guard()` (segment test + arrow-through-card test) asserts on every render; report: FIELD [] POND [] FOREST [] DESERT [] SHORE [] PRAIRIE [] RIVER [] MARSH []
Fig 3	L06 q9	figure dropped (W10), so no `legend=False` render was needed
Fig 5	web card a local redraw	`CARD_H = F41.CARD_H` (46), rx 9, width `F41._card_w` scaled 14 → 17 px; the L06 page shows one card for chain and web (screenshot)
Fig 6	briefs	`poster_cartoon` names the arrow direction (from the grass to the rabbit, from the rabbit to the fox); the leaf-pile pair is one kind — `leafpile_spring_photo` → `leafpile_spring_cartoon`, same viewpoint, Troy in both
Fig	marsh heads merge; mushroom label; snake photo unplaced	turtle moved so the two heads enter from two sides; "mushroom: no arrow" 12 px one line at the top right; `snake_mouse_photo` placed in L05 after "The snake eats mice."

#### Checker lines (final)

build_tools_check_topic.py → 0 FAIL, 28 WARN: 26 × S8 (beats of three sentences — the micro-lesson anatomy, as v1); S33 L06-q10 (typed before the MCQ — the coordinator's ruling); S34 "food chain" has no recall (Grade 3's word, as v1). S36: 0 (beaver, cedar, sidewalk judged fine and added to reference/grade3_word_additions.txt under a dated line; "gutter" swapped for "sidewalk").
grade4/check_g4_articles.py → 0 FAIL; scripts 147 / 148 / 150 / 149 / 147 / 149; articles 295 / 303 / 318 / 336 / 343 / 305 (WARN above 300 on L02–L06: kept — each has a subtitle or figure every ≤ 8 idea lines, and v2 added the coins and the recall sentences the reviews asked for).
check_key_tells.py → KEY TELLS: 0 of 138 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0).
build_tools_names.py Whitaker Seth Troy Sloane → all free, exit 0.
check_svg_ids.py → 66 figures, 0 ids, PASS.
build_tools_video_batch.py → 8 videos, key string B A C A B A A B A; check_brief.py → L01–L06 and SUMMARY ✓ (7 of 8), INTRO the standing accepted hit (no closing bullets) and the at-the-limit question-mark note. The UNBAN row for L02 / SUMMARY "energy" is in place; no new beat needs "energy". Not sent.
Blind bundle re-cut: blind/2026-10-02-v2/ — 132 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 6 multi; held 142. [Drawing: lines: 27; producer | consumer | decomposer | eaten | energy → 0; "eats" beyond the legend line and the card rows → 0.

#### Key strings (source order)

Attached, video order: B A C A B A A B A (unchanged).
L03 two-option (new order) y n y y n n n; three-option 2 0 0. L04 three-option 0 2 0 2 0 1 1; two-option n y n. L05 three-option 1 1 2 2 1 0 0 1 0 2; two-option n. L06 three-option 0 2 0 1 1; four-option 0; multi {0,1} and {0,1}; two-option 0 n.
Bank MCQ keys A 10 · B 16 · C 11 · D 13; multi {A,B} ×2 and {A,B,C} ×1; typed 1. Tiers 12 easy · 27 medium · 15 hard; per atom 020 6 · 021 8 · 022 8 · 025 8 · 023 11 · 024 13.

#### Changed ids

L01 idea (carbon dioxide), q1; L02 lesson_type note, three article lines, q1; L03 headache/article (Troy, mold line, the producer line), attached stem, script beats 1–5, q2 (sidewalk), q10, quiz order; L04 article (pile line, nutrients, leafpile_spring_cartoon), script beats 1–4, q1, q2, q3, new q4 (nutrients), q8; L05 article (role lines, snake photo), script beats 1–5, q4 (card_q_mold_branch), new q11 (role); L06 forest, article, script beat 2, closing, q7, q8, q9, q10 ↔ q11, quiz order; TOPIC terms / coined_at / RECALL_BY_MCQ; PRACTICE PR-7, new PR-15 (nutrients), PR-16 ↔ PR-17 (life cycle); bank PP-2, 3, 7, 13, 15, 18, 20, 39 (the clam, from 45), 44 (from 43), 45 (the mole, from 44), 48. Figures: web(), web_guard(), all eight layouts, _mushroom_aside, run_strip, run_decomposers, soil_steps, role_card_body / card_w_for, table_sort_blank, card_q_mold_branch, leafpile_spring_cartoon, two briefs, IMAGE_KINDS lists.

#### Renders opened (author re-render, review-figures step 1)

All 39 changed keys rendered with headless Chrome to /tmp/g4t35_v2png/ and opened: the three field webs, the seven item webs, the three run strips, the soil steps, the blank table, the sixteen role cards, the six item cards, the spring cartoon. Built page /tmp/g4t35_v2.html: screenshots of every article route, the L06 quiz and the PP100 at 1280 px and in a 360 px iframe (/tmp/g4t35_v2shots/); on the phone shot the field web spans 342 of 360 px, so its names render at about 16 px (17 × 342 / 360) and the legend at about 12 px; the L06 page shows one card style for the chains and the web.

#### Judged differently, and why

The L05 mold card was re-scened as well as L03-02: it leaned on the same outside fact (bread is dead plant stuff).
"nutrients" is spoken once in the L04 script as well as written once in the article, because the L04 quiz now carries its recognition item and a video-only student must be able to answer it.
The forest web lost its second arrow into the owl (squirrel → owl had no deer equivalent); the owl now has one arrow in, and q6's key is unchanged.
The clam joined the medium block last rather than in atom order (the stable re-sort rule); S31 raised no warning.
PP-18's fourth option was changed although no review row named a fix: the blind table listed it among tempting-wrongs that lean on outside knowledge.
The run strip for decomposers now shows four cases (the article shows four); v1's strip showed three.

v3 — polish (2 October 2026)

Skill: course-build → write-mcqs (every item change; check_key_tells.py at 0) → write-explanation (every changed fb and why) @ e23b67f

In plain words. A third cold reader (Reader C) read the whole v2 bundle, 130 items, and agreed every key; no second option was defensible anywhere. Two items would not have shipped as they stood: a TRUE claim (Troy: plant roots take the bits in) whose sentence an earlier stem and an earlier key had already printed, and the bank's arrow-meaning item (PP-38), which the legend on every web drawing answers. Five softer notes: the three typed "food web" items sat after stems that print the words; the "role" item came after ten stems that say "Which role"; Seth's arrow claim came after seven legends; L03-10's key was the only option with "and" and the longest; PP-20's key was the only option with "and"; PP-18 was L03-10 with the nouns changed. All applied; every key keeps its letter and its meaning; no figure changed; no script line changed, so the batch stands as built (not sent). Blind bundle re-cut to blind/2026-10-02-v3/. Nothing committed.

#### Flag → change

Flag (Reader C)	Change
L04-06 (Troy: roots take the bits in — yes) is stated as fact in L04-04's stem and is L04-03's key	the TRUE claim is re-scened onto a fact no earlier stem or key states: "Troy says a plant uses the tiny bits it takes in from the soil to grow new leaves and roots. Is Troy right?" (yes); fb and why re-set on "use them to grow"; the lesson line it rests on is "The grass uses those bits to build new leaves and roots." A re-order was rejected: moved before L04-03, the claim's fb would have handed L04-03 its key (the 2026-09-29 feedback rule)
PP-38 (what the arrow means) follows PP-33–37, whose legends print the convention	⟂ constraint on the type sheet: PP-38 ⟂ every web item (PP-33–37, PP-48–53); PP-38 keeps no figure; the legend stays on the webs (the read items' convention datum)
typed "food web" (L06-10, PR-16, PP-54) after stems that print "food web"	L06's typed item moves to L06-03 and PR's to PR-09, each before the first web stem on its page; the recognition MCQs (L06-11, PR-17) stay last and print the answer, so both pages are served in fixed order (recorded here and in the lesson's check_design); PP-54 ⟂ every web item on the type sheet (a bank is drawn at random)
L05-11 asks what the way of getting food is called after ten stems say "Which role"	the "role" item is now L05-01, on two fresh things ("A pony eats grass, and a cherry tree makes its own food…"), so the quiz runs recognise the label → apply it in the sorts; the goat and the fern keep their own sort items
L06-09 (Seth's arrow claim) after seven legends	moved to L06-02, straight after the Grade 3 recall of the arrow and before any web; the typed item follows it at L06-03
L03-10 key the only option with "and" and the longest	key "They break the dead wood into tiny bits." (the lesson's own phrase), distractors "They make their food inside the post." / "The post was made of soft wood when new." — lengths 40 / 37 / 40, no joiner anywhere
PP-20 key the only option with "and"	option B "Mold is too small and too thin to be a plant."; key unchanged
PP-18 near-twin of L03-10 (dead wood gone soft, why)	re-scened AND re-moved: "Mushrooms grow in a ring in a park, right over the dead roots of a tree cut down years ago. Why do the mushrooms grow there?" — key "The mushrooms feed on the dead roots under the grass."; distractors on the mushroom-is-a-plant belief, the flowers belief and the consumer confusion; type 4's line on the type sheet now reads "a sign of a decomposer at work"
bundle letters after the re-orders	the ids shifted, so the bundler's seeded shuffle re-lettered L05 to C 7 of 11; the bat (L05-05) and the mold card (L05-03) swapped places (same tier, same move) → L05 bundle letters C C A A B C B B C A C (C 5 of 11); no quiz letter above 60 %, no run of four anywhere

#### Checks after v3

python3 build_tools_check_topic.py grade4/topic35_build/content/G4T35.py → 0 FAIL, 29 WARN: 26 × S8 (beats of three sentences, as v1); S34 "food chain" has no recall (Grade 3's word, as v1); S33 L06-q3 and S32 L06 position 3 (the typed item before its recognition MCQ and in the first third) — the coordinator's ruling: the give-away read outranks the climb, the MCQ that prints the answer stays last, the quiz is served in fixed order.
python3 grade4/check_g4_articles.py grade4/topic35_build/content/G4T35.py → 0 FAIL; articles 295 / 303 / 318 / 336 / 343 / 305 (WARN above 300 on L02–L06, kept as v2); scripts 147 / 148 / 150 / 149 / 147 / 149; intro 118; summary 135, opener ok.
python3 ~/Documents/CourseBuilding-Vault/skills/write-mcqs/check_key_tells.py grade4/topic35_build/content/G4T35.py → KEY TELLS: 0 of 138 MCQs flagged (a: 0, b: 0, c: 0); KEY LONGEST (any margin) 36 of 138, fixed-set exempt 61.
python3 build_tools_names.py Whitaker Seth Troy Sloane → all free, exit 0.
python3 ~/Documents/CourseBuilding-Vault/skills/review-figures/check_svg_ids.py grade4/topic35_build/content/figures.py → PASS (66 figures, 0 ids).
python3 build_tools_build_topic_site.py grade4/topic35_build/content/G4T35.py /tmp/g4t35_p.html → 6 lessons, 17 practice, 54 pp100, 66 figures.
Batch: no script line, attached question or closing bullet changed (grep of the batch JSON for every changed string → 0 hits), so batch_G4T35.json stands as built; not rebuilt, not sent.
Blind bundle re-cut: blind/2026-10-02-v3/ — 132 mcq, 3 text, 1 frq, 6 multi; held 142; adversarial rows 3. [Drawing: lines 27; producer | consumer | decomposer | eaten | energy → 0.

#### Counts and key strings after v3

Unchanged: 6 lessons · 62 quiz items (10 + 10 + 10 + 10 + 11 + 11) · 6 attached + 3 summary questions · 17 practice · bank 54 (50 four-option MCQ, 3 multi-select, 1 typed); per atom 020 6 · 021 8 · 022 8 · 025 8 · 023 11 · 024 13; tiers 12 easy / 27 medium / 15 hard; bank MCQ keys A 10 · B 16 · C 11 · D 13; attached B A C A B A A B A.

Source order: L05 three-option 2 1 2 2 1 1 0 0 1 0, two-option n. L06 two-option 0 n, then typed, then three-option 0 2 0 1 1, four-option 0, multi {0,1} ×2. Practice: keys unchanged, the typed item now ninth.

Bundle letters: L01 BBBCAAABAC · L02 CABABABBBA · L03 ABBBABBACA · L04 ACBBABAACB · L05 CCAABCBBCAC · L06 (MCQ) BACCACCB · PR (MCQ) CBBBAAABBAACAC · bank A 18 · B 11 · C 11 · D 10, longest run 2.

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

Text changed: L03-10 (options) · L04-06 (stem, fb, why) · L05-01 (the role item: stem, moved from L05-11) · PP-18 (stem, options, why) · PP-20 (option B). Moved only: L05-03 (mold card, from L05-04) · L05-05 (bat, from L05-02); the L05 sorts are now deer 02, mold 03, tiny living things 04, bat 05, goat 06, water plants 07, sunflower 08, turkey 09, Troy's eagle claim 10, fern 11 · L06-02 (Seth's claim, from L06-09) · L06-03 (typed, from L06-10); the web items are L06-04–10 · PR-09 (typed, from PR-16); PR-10–16 shift up one. Records: TYPES_G4T35.md (v3 note, the type-4 line and exemplar, inventory row, two ⟂ constraints, keys note); the L05 and L06 check_design strings.

#### Judgement calls, v3

L04-06 was re-scened, not re-ordered. Either order of the two roots items hands the other its answer through the claim's feedback; a TRUE claim on "uses the bits to grow" is the only L04 fact no earlier stem or key states.
The L06 typed item sits third, inside the first third of its quiz (S32, S33). Reader C's give-away read outranks the climb rule here: every web stem prints the answer, and the only place before them is after the two arrow items.
The "role" item went first in the quiz rather than into the attached question. Both were offered; the attached question is in the video batch, and a quiz that opens by recognising the label and then applies it in ten sorts climbs the right way.
L03-10 was trimmed; PP-20 matched a distractor. L03-10's key is the lesson's exact phrase without the "and"; PP-20's key ("no leaves and makes no food") loses its reason if shortened.
PP-18 changed its move, not only its nouns. Every "why has the dead wood gone soft" scene is L03-10's template; "why do the mushrooms grow there" asks where a decomposer lives.
The L05 swap was done by simulating the bundler (one seeded stream, one shuffle per item, so a quiz's letters depend only on its items' positions); the swap keeps the claim and the role item where they are.

#### Owed after v3

A mini re-read of the changed ids above (blind/2026-10-02-v3/) by a reader who has not seen the keys.
James's five questions on the Needs-you page (records/REVIEW_NEXT_G4T35.md → course_preview/review/REVIEW_NEXT_G4T35.html); the picture pass (13 photo and 6 cartoon placeholders) waits on them.
James's notes on the scripts are the cue to send the eight-video batch (the UNBAN row for "energy" is in place).

Nothing committed.

The type sheet (eleven types, one exemplar each, the inventory and the draw constraints)

_Skill: course-build → write-mcqs → write-explanation @ efd8fba (v1) · v2 edits @ fb37d14 (2 Oct 2026, after the three reviews: Simon → Troy; PP-45 the clam retagged medium and moved to PP-39, so the hard tier is PP-40–54; PP-13/15/17/20/44 options reasons only; PP-48 is the one three-right multi-select; PP-2/3/7 re-scened; the type-9 exemplar's number corrected to PP-38) · v3 polish @ e23b67f (2 Oct 2026, after Reader C's full re-read: PP-18 re-scened from the boardwalk to mushrooms in a ring over dead roots, a different type-4 instance; PP-20's option B carries "and" too; two new ⟂ constraints, PP-38 and PP-54 against every web item)_

Topic 35 — Producers, consumers and decomposers — the PP100's question types, with their exemplars (v1, 2 October 2026)

Bank: content/G4T35_pp100_bank.py, 54 items (50 four-option MCQ, 3 multi-select, 1 typed), ≥ 5 per atom, tiers rising with atom order (12 easy · 27 medium · 15 hard after v2). Every item names its type (type_). The three role words are recalled by MCQ (RECALL_BY_MCQ); the typed key is "food web".

The eleven types

#	Type (one line)	Tier(s)	Atoms
1	Four living things named; which of them is a <role>?	easy, hard (a near-miss set)	020, 021, 022
2	A case described by how it gets its food; which role is it? — the fixed set producer / consumer / decomposer / not a living thing, rotated per item	easy, medium, hard	020–023
3	Two or three cases; which are consumers / decomposers? (both / only / neither; a three-in-one ordered list)	easy, hard	021, 022, 023
4	A sign of a decomposer at work (mushrooms in a ring over dead roots; a dug-in heap that makes plants grow): what is the correct reason? (four single-statement reasons)	medium, hard	022, 025
5	The tiny bits: where they go, how a plant gets them, what it uses them for, what happens with no decomposers	medium, hard	025
6	A named child's wrong claim; what is the correct reason? (four single-statement reasons; the verdict in the stem)	medium, hard	020, 021, 022, 023, 024, 025
7	A drawn web; what does X eat? / which living thing eats X? (one arrow)	medium	024
8	A drawn web; which living things eat X? / what does X eat? — a set (multi-select)	hard	024
9	An arrow runs from A to B; which sentence is true?	medium	024
10	Typed: the name for many food chains joined together	hard	024
11	A drawn web; which living thing eats both A and B? (two arrows-in on one card)	hard	024

One exemplar per type, in full

Type 1 (easy, LIF4-020, PP-2). Four living things live in a park in Texas. Which of them is a producer? — a cardinal / a dandelion / a lizard / a shark. Why: A producer is a living thing that makes its own food, using sunlight. The dandelion's leaves make its food, using sunlight; the cardinal, the lizard and the shark eat other living things. So the dandelion is the producer.

Type 2 (easy, LIF4-021, PP-6). A green sea turtle eats sea grass on the sea floor. Which role is the sea turtle? — a decomposer / not a living thing / a producer / a consumer. Why: A consumer is a living thing that gets its energy by eating other living things. The sea turtle eats sea grass, another living thing. So the sea turtle is a consumer.

Type 3 (easy, LIF4-021, PP-9). A bison eats prairie grass, and a coyote eats a prairie dog. Which is true? — Only the coyote is a consumer. / Only the bison is a consumer. / Both are producers. / Both are consumers. Why: … The bison eats a plant, and the coyote eats an animal; both eat other living things. So both are consumers.

Type 4 (medium, LIF4-022, PP-18; v3). Mushrooms grow in a ring in a park, right over the dead roots of a tree cut down years ago. Why do the mushrooms grow there? — The mushrooms make their own food, using sunlight, like the grass. / The mushrooms feed on the dead roots under the grass. / The mushrooms are the grass's flowers. / The mushrooms eat the living grass around them. Why: A decomposer feeds on dead things, breaking them into tiny bits. The dead roots are dead wood under the grass, and the mushrooms feed on them. So the mushrooms grow right over the dead roots. (v2's boardwalk was L03-10's fence post with the nouns changed, Reader C; this instance asks WHERE a decomposer grows, not why wood is soft.)

Type 5 (medium, LIF4-025, PP-23). Tiny bits from dead leaves are in the soil around a peach tree. How does the peach tree get them? — Its flowers catch them. / Its leaves soak them up from the air around the tree. / It eats them through its bark. / Its roots take them in with the water.

Type 6 (hard, LIF4-025, PP-43; hb: tells the bits from energy). Sloane says decomposers put energy back into the soil for plants to use. Sloane is wrong. What is the correct reason? — Decomposers put tiny bits of dead things into the soil, not energy. / Decomposers put water from the dead things into the soil, not energy. / Decomposers put energy into the air, not the soil. / Decomposers put seeds into the soil, not energy.

Type 7 (medium, LIF4-024, PP-35, figure web_pp_prairie). Here is a prairie food web. What does the sparrow eat? — the prairie dog / the coyote / the beetle / the prairie grass. Why: To find what a living thing eats, follow the arrows that point into it. The one arrow into the sparrow comes from the beetle. So the sparrow eats beetles.

Type 8 (hard, LIF4-024, PP-48, figure web_pp_desert; hb: a set of three). Here is the desert food web. What does the roadrunner eat? Select every one. — the lizard / the kangaroo rat / the ant / the desert grass. (v2: the one multi-select with three right answers; the desert web gained the arrow ant → roadrunner.)

Type 9 (medium, LIF4-024, PP-38). In a food web drawing, an arrow runs from the snail to the duck. Which is true? — The snail eats the duck. / The duck eats the snail. / The snail and the duck eat each other. / The arrow shows that the duck is bigger.

Type 10 (hard, LIF4-024, PP-54, typed). Many food chains are joined together into one drawing of what eats what in a place. Type the name of the drawing. — accept: food web, a food web, the food web, food webs, foodweb, a foodweb, food wed, food wep, fod web, food webb; wrong_fb "food chain": A food chain is one line of living things. Many food chains joined together make a food web.

Type 11 (hard, LIF4-024, PP-51, figure web_pp_river; hb: two arrows-in on one card). Here is the river food web. Which living thing eats both the crayfish and the small fish? — the raccoon / the otter / the water weeds / the bass.

Design-move inventory (move · scene kind · nearest earlier item)

Items	Move	Scene kind	Nearest lesson-side instance
PP-1, 4, 5	sort a described plant as a producer / say what it eats (nothing)	a crop or garden plant	L01 q2 (corn), q1 (bean) — different plants, same move, fluency-tier
PP-2, 3, 7, 8, 11	pick the one <role> from four named living things	a park (cardinal, dandelion, lizard, toad), a lake (beaver, snapping turtle, water lily, sunfish), a ranch (jackrabbit, wheat, cotton, cedar), a coast, a yard — v2: every animal and plant lives where its stem says	L01 q10, L02 q9, L03 q9 — three-option versions; the bank's stems name the place
PP-6, 14, 16	sort a described eater (sea grass, flower juice, fish)	sea, flowers, river	L02 q3 (hawk), q5 (caterpillar)
PP-9, 19, 47	both / only / neither on two or three cases	prairie animals; a lizard and tiny living things; an elk, a bear and mold	L02 q8's boundary (plant-eaters are consumers) as a sort
PP-10, 12, 21, 32	sort a described decomposer (fuzz on a strawberry, shelf fungus, a banana peel, a dead jellyfish)	fridge, dead trunk, garden, beach	L03 q2 (bread), q7 (dead fish on a bank)
PP-13, 15, 17, 20	a wrong claim, correct reason (palm must eat; sheep makes wool; people buy food; mold is a plant)	—	L01 q9, L02 q8, L03 q5 as yes / no claims
PP-18, 42	why do mushrooms grow there (a decomposer grows where its dead food is) / why do the plants grow bigger	a ring of mushrooms over dead roots in a park; a pepper bed by a dead hedge	L03 q10 (why is the fence post crumbly: a different move since v3), L04 q8 (bin)
PP-22–26, 40	where the bits go / how the plant gets them / what for / who keeps the layer thin / no decomposers over years	marsh reeds; a peach tree; flower stalks; cottonwood leaves; a wood	L04 q1, q3, q8, q9
PP-27–31	sort from a drawn card or a described case; the plastic flower	armadillo, kelp, a vase, a feeder, a farm pond	L05 q1, q4, q7 (cards)
PP-44–47 (v2 numbers); PP-39	ordered three-in-one list; a mole claim; an orchid; an elk-bear-mold sort; the clam (now medium, PP-39: it eats tiny floating plants — Grade 3 Topic 41's phrase)	kelp forest; soil; a tree branch; a wood; sand	L05 q9's claim as the nearest
PP-33–38, 48–53	read a web one way; a set (PP-48 three right); two arrows-in; a claim by counting	desert, prairie, river webs	L06 q3–q8 on the pond and forest webs
PP-38	arrow meaning	snail → duck	L06 q1 (clover → deer), q9 (no figure in v2)
PP-54	typed term	—	L06 q11

⟂ draw constraints (an item that prints another's answer; near-duplicate pairs)

PP-38 (what the arrow means) ⟂ every web item: PP-33–37 and PP-48–53 (v3, Reader C). Every web drawing carries the legend "The arrow points from the food to the one that eats it", which is PP-38's answer. PP-38 has no figure of its own. A test that holds PP-38 either holds no web item or serves PP-38 before the first web item; the legend stays on the webs, because it is the convention datum the read items rest on.
PP-54 (type the name "food web") ⟂ every web item: PP-33–37 and PP-48–53 (v3, Reader C). Every web stem opens "Here is a … food web", which prints the typed answer. Same rule as PP-38: no web item in the same test, or PP-54 served first. (The same give-away in the lesson quiz and the practice set is fixed by order: L06-03 and PR-09 sit before the first web stem on their page, and those pages are served in fixed order.)

PP-33 (the roadrunner eats the lizard) ⟂ PP-48 (what the roadrunner eats: lizard, kangaroo rat).
PP-37 (the otter eats the bass) ⟂ PP-53 (Seth's otter claim: "only one arrow points into the otter, from the bass").
PP-50 (which eat the crayfish: raccoon, bass) ⟂ PP-51 (eats both the crayfish and the small fish: the bass).
PP-52 (eats both the desert grass and the ant: the kangaroo rat) ⟂ PP-34 (the owl eats the kangaroo rat) is NOT a give-away (different cards); PP-52 ⟂ PP-48 only through the kangaroo rat's name — draw one per test to be safe.
PP-7 and PP-8 share the move (v2: no shared option words — PP-7's plants are now a wheat plant, a cotton plant and a cedar tree); still draw one per test.
PP-28 (kelp card) ⟂ PP-44 (the ordered list names kelp as the producer).
PP-33 (the roadrunner eats the lizard) and PP-52 (the kangaroo rat eats the ant and the grass) ⟂ PP-48 (the roadrunner's three foods include the lizard and the ant): draw one of PP-33 / PP-48 per test.

Bar list (real things never used as sort cases because their role is arguable at this grade)

earthworm, vulture, snail (as a sort case; it appears only as the food in an arrow item), millipede, dung beetle, Venus flytrap, lichen, any animal eating something already dead ("scavenger" is not taught).

Keys

MCQ keys A 10 · B 16 · C 11 · D 13 across 50 four-option items (unchanged by v3: PP-18's key stays at index 1, PP-20's at index 0); two multi-selects key {A, B} and PP-48 keys {A, B, C} (the bundle shuffles them); the typed item's accept list is above. Key-tell checker (v2 and v3): KEY TELLS: 0 of 138 MCQs flagged. No key is the longest option by the checker's margin; PP-2 (by one letter), PP-29 (the fixed set's long fourth word) and PP-52 (the longest card name in its web) are noted in the build record.

The guidance, questions and accuracy review (2 October 2026)

_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 35 — guidance, questions and accuracy review, 2 October 2026

Sound; ships after a short fix pass. The science is right at Grade 4 depth, the arrow convention is one convention drawn on every web, the record's counts re-perform true, the chain drawer is imported from Grade 3 Topic 41 and the arrow line recalled word for word. Two things before James sees it: "role" is in some thirty stems and never explained or spoken in any script; the L03 video drops the "tiny living things too small to see" case that two quiz items and all of L04 lean on.

Key-tell checker: KEY TELLS: 6 of 135 MCQs flagged (a: 4, b: 2, c: 0).

Essentials

"Role" never coined — coin it once in L05 (article and script) and take it out of L03's attached question. 2. Video–article parity, L03 (the tiny-living-things case) and L04 ("without decomposers the leaves pile up").

Worth fixing

"a gas from the air" after Topic 34 coined carbon dioxide. 4. L02 recalls Grade 3's Sun sentence — Topic 34's two sentences instead (below). 5. Type-6 options bundle reason + verdict (PP-13, 15, 17, 20, 44); PP-15 B true. 6. L04 "most of the leaves" mass claim; PR-7. 7. Forest web: a squirrel does not eat oak leaves → deer. 8. L06 "Draw the rabbit once" imperative; "grows into". 9. table_sort_blank blanks both columns. 10. L06-09: drop the figure, keep the legend. 11. PP-45 → medium. 12. The six key tells.

Leave

Mushroom beside the web; the legend's wording; "not a living thing"; the bar list; the run strip; PP-4 ≈ PR-8; every "energy" line a transfer sentence; the S8 warnings. Coordinator's rulings: Simon → a free name (as elsewhere); PP-15's two true reasons fixed as below; the typed "food web" items moved before the MCQs that print it (blind read).

Author's questions: (1) name "nutrients" once as the label after the explanation ("These tiny bits are called nutrients."), one MCQ recognition item, no typed item; "tiny bits" everywhere else. (2) mushroom beside the web — keep. (3) UNBAN — done.

where	finding	rule broken	severity	the rewrite
L05 article + script beat 2; L03 attached stem	"role" ~30 times, never explained	explain then label	Essential	L05: "How a living thing gets its food is called its role. There are three roles." L03 attached: "Fuzzy mold grows on an old orange, and the orange goes soft. What is the mold?"
L03 script beats 2–3; L04 script beat 3	tiny-living-things case and "without decomposers" missing	video and text each teach the whole part	Essential	L03 beat 2 "A mushroom is not a plant: no leaves, no green parts, no food. It feeds on the dead log, breaking the wood into tiny bits. Yes." new beat "And tiny living things too small to see feed on dead leaves in the soil. Yes." L04 beat 3 + "Without them, the leaves would pile up deeper every year."
L01 idea; L01 q1 fb/why; L04 q3 fb; PR-2; PP-5 why	"a gas from the air"	scaffold noun retired after the coin	Worth fixing	"…using sunlight, water and carbon dioxide from the air."
PP-13 key; PP-15; PP-17; PP-20; PP-44	reason + verdict in one option; PP-15 B true	an option never bundles verdict with reason	Worth fixing	PP-13 key "A palm tree makes its own food in its leaves."; PP-15 D "A sheep eats grass, another living thing.", B "A sheep is not a producer, because only trees are producers."; PP-44 "A mole eats living worms and bugs."; cut ", so it is a …" on all
L04 "most of the leaves…"; PR-7	mass claim	never a false count	Worth fixing	"The pile sank, because the leaves were now tiny bits, and the bits had gone into the soil." PR-7 "Decomposers break dead grass clippings on a lawn into tiny bits. Where do the bits go?"
FOREST / FOREST_A; L06 q7, q8	squirrel eats oak leaves	real organism	Worth fixing	squirrel → deer (oak leaves→deer, deer→bobcat); q7 key "the deer"; q8 options caterpillar / deer / owl / blue jay, keys [0,1]
L06 article, forest, script beat 2, closing	imperative; "grows"	article shows; no figurative verbs	Worth fixing	"Here the rabbit is drawn once, with one arrow to the fox and one to the hawk. The two chains join." / "Let's draw the rabbit once…" / "So Seth's poster becomes a food web…"
`table_sort_blank`	both columns blank	figures tell the truth	Worth fixing	`blank_after=1`
L06 q9	legend is the key	cover the figure	Worth fixing	remove `fig`
PP-45	hb names a stranger scene	hard means more	Worth fixing	medium; hb removed
L03-10, L04-1, L04-2, L04-3, L04-7, PP-13	key tells	key tells	Worth fixing	"They feed on the dead wood and break it up." / "They break into tiny bits in the soil." / "Decomposers broke the straw into tiny bits." / "Its roots take them in." / "decomposers breaking them into tiny bits"
L06-11, PR-16; L03/L05 key runs; multi-selects all two-right; Simon; PP-02/07/03 scenes; "food line"; PP-39 line; PP-10 mold; PP-45 plankton; L03-02 bread; PP-18	blind read	—	Worth fixing	as the blind-read table rules

The Topic 34 sentences Topic 35 recalls, word for word, in L02's "The rabbit" section: "The Sun's light carries energy to the grass, and the grass makes its food." and "A rabbit eats the grass, so the energy in the grass passes to the rabbit."; then "The fox eats the mouse, so the energy in the mouse passes to the fox." L02 q1's why → "Every plant got its energy from the Sun's light"; retag LIF3-050 → LIF4-012.

The figure review (2 October 2026)

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

Topic 35 — figure review, 2 October 2026

What a student notices first: on a desktop the web is the picture of the topic — clean name cards, one dark arrow style, the legend under every web. On a phone the same web is a thumbnail (names 6.5 px, legend 5.5 px) and the mushroom beside it is a brown smudge. The arrows themselves are right everywhere.

Must fix before a cold read

Phone size. The page column at 360 px is 278 px, so a 560-wide web shows at ×0.496: names 6.5 px, legend 5.5, chips 5. Fix in web(): a portrait frame (W≈360, H≈420) with 17 px names and a 13 px legend on two lines. run_strip → per_row=1; soil_steps → 2×2 (W≈330).
Two webs cross. Field web (and its halo copies): mouse→fox crosses rabbit→hawk. Pond web: tadpole→water snake crosses small fish→heron — the only arrow into the heron, under a quiz item that counts arrows into the heron. Crossing-free relayouts (verified): FIELD grass (300,268), grasshopper (100,268), mouse (210,184), fox (335,184), rabbit (470,184), snake (130,90), hawk (340,28); POND pondweed (120,250), tadpole (120,150), small fish (300,150), water snake (120,40), heron (470,40).
L06 q9 answered by its own figure — the legend says what the arrow means while the stem asks it. legend=False for that render, or no figure (as q1).
table_sort_blank caption and alt false of the render (two empty columns). blank_after=1.
The web's cards are a local redraw of the imported chain card (46 tall / rx 9 / 14 px vs 36 / rx 8 / 13 px) — on the L06 page "rabbit" is two different cards. web() takes F41.CARD_H, F41._card_w and 14 px, or Topic 41 exposes a card helper.
Briefs. poster_cartoon never states the arrow direction; leafpile_fall_cartoon / leafpile_spring_photo are a before/after pair in two media with no shared composition — same kind, same viewpoint, Simon in both or neither.

Page pass

Clean build (66 figures); every figure renders alone; blind comments stripped. check_svg_ids.py: 66 figures, 0 ids, PASS. Desktop legible. Phone: webs 6.5/5.5 FAIL; run strips 6.4 FAIL; soil steps 5.5 FAIL; tables 9.4/8; rule cards 6.4–7.3; role cards 11.7/10.8/9.2/8.3; item cards 13.4/10.5.

Arrow audit

Direction PASS on all ten webs; one style; heads on the eater only; legend verbatim. Crossing FAIL: field ×3, pond. Marsh: cricket and frog heads merge on the turtle at phone width (turtle to ≈(470,180)). River web's leftward bass→otter is a good fresh instance. Mushroom aside reads deliberate on desktop, decoration on a phone — label 12 px, one line ("mushroom: no arrow"). Tiny-bits strip PASS (bits change colour from dark brown to cream — one colour with an outline). Sort cards PASS. Item webs' alt/blind PASS except finding 3. Grade 3 drawer imported as drawn.

Unplaced

snake_mouse_photo — place in L05 beside "the snake eats mice", else delete.

key	kind	used by	verdict	what is wrong	the fix
web_field, _hawk_in, _grass_out	svg	L06, summary	FAIL	crossing; 6.5 px; local card; mushroom label	relayout; portrait; import card; 12 px label
web_q_pond	svg	L06 q2–q5	FAIL	crossing under the counted arrow; size	relayout; portrait
web_q_forest	svg	L06 q6–q9	FAIL	legend answers q9; size	legend off for q9; portrait
web_pr_shore, web_pp_desert/prairie/river, web_s_marsh	svg	PR, PP, summary	PASS arrows / FAIL size	6.5 px; marsh heads	portrait; move turtle
chain_field, chains_two	svg (F41)	L02, L06	PASS	—	—
role__q (13), role__named (3)	svg	L01–L03	PASS	11.7/9.2 px	name 16, how 14, label 12
run_producers/consumers/decomposers	svg	L01–L03	FAIL size	6.4 px	per_row=1
card_q_ (3), card_pp_ (3)	svg	L05 quiz, PP	PASS	—	—
soil_steps	svg	L04, summary	FAIL size	5.5 px; bit colour	2×2; one colour
table_sort_blank	svg	L05	FAIL	caption false	blank_after=1
table_sort_field, card_one_question, rule_*	svg	L01–L06	PASS	small on phone	—
14 photo_ph, 5 cartoon_ph	ph	L01–L06	PASS (briefs)	snake_mouse unplaced; leafpile pair; poster arrow	place; same-kind pair; add direction

Best: web_pp_river; the role card family; table_sort_field. Weakest: web_field; web_q_pond; table_sort_blank.

The blind read: two readers (2 October 2026)

_Skill: course-build → review-lesson (Role A blind key read, two readers; Role C adjudication by the coordinator) @ fb37d14_

Every key agreed by two blind readers (139 and 134 rows; MCQ disagreements 0; the six multi-selects matched; typed "food web" on list; the FRQ models match). All seventeen web items follow the legend's arrow convention (food → eater); no key calls the tiny bits the plant's food; no key has a plant eating or an animal making food; the sort bins are honest.

Flags carried into the fix pass

Item	Who	Flag	Ruling
PP-15	A, B	"Wool is not food, so it does not count" is a true reason beside the key	one correct reason only: drop option B for a wrong reason
L06-11, PR-16 (typed "food web")	A	sit under an MCQ whose options print the answer	move the typed item before L06-10 / PR-15, or re-option those
L03-10, L04-02, L04-03, L04-07, PP-13; PP-17	A, B	key longest and the only option with "and" / "so"	checker to zero
L03 and L05 quizzes 8 of 11 keys A; PP-29–33 five A; PP-34–37 four D; all six multi-selects have exactly two right	A, B	keys spread; learnable pattern	re-letter; one multi-select with three right
Simon	B	"Simon says…" reads as the game; three S-names	rename Simon to a free non-S name; NAMES_POOL row
PP-02 shark in a Texas park; PP-07 kelp on a Texas ranch; PP-03 seal in a lake	B	scene truth	re-scene
"food line" (L06-10, PR-15)	A, B	invented distractor	a real wrong word ("food chain" is Grade 3's — use it as the tempting-wrong)
PP-39 vine on a dead cactus	A	needs the line "a plant growing on a dead thing is still a producer"	add the line or re-scene
PP-10 "gray fuzz" never named mold; PP-45 "tiny living things" for plankton collides with the decomposer phrase; L03-02 bread as a "dead thing"; PP-18 rain softens wood	A, B	tempting-wrongs that lean on outside knowledge	name mold in the lesson; "tiny floating plants" for plankton; re-scene the bread
L06-09 legend hands over the answer	B	drawing cue	legend off the item card
"role", "energy", "food chain" coined before L03-V-01, L02-01, L06-01?	B	confirm lesson lines	guidance reviewer

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

Reader C's full re-read of the v2 bundle (2 October 2026)

_Skill: review-lesson @ e23b67f — Role A, blind key reader (Reader C, cold). Read only BLIND_BUNDLE_G4T35.md (v2)._

Takeaway

Every item has exactly one answer I would defend, including the sheep item (PP-15: three reasons false, one true) and every "which sentence shows X is wrong" item. The web descriptions all run food → eater and no legend hands over an asked arrow. The sort cases (mushroom, moss, algae, plastic flower, vine on a dead cactus, tiny things in soil) each fall into one honest bin, and no key calls the tiny bits the plant's food. Two things I would fix before shipping: L04-04's stem states L04-06's answer word for word ("plant roots take the bits in"), and PP-38 asks the arrow convention straight after five webs whose legends print it. Three softer notes: all three typed items (L06-10, PR-16, PP-54) have "food web" printed in earlier stems on the same page; L05-11 asks what "role" is called after ten stems have said "Which role"; L03-10's key is the only option with "and" and the longest by a clause. Names: Seth, Troy and Sloane read apart; Seth and Sloane share an S but differ in length and sound.

Items

id	answer	one-line note
L01-01	B	A, C tempting-wrong; options even length.
L01-02	B	clean.
L01-03	B	clean.
L01-04	C	"producer" named here first; A, B plain wrong.
L01-05	A	stem states the producer test; fluency frame, fine.
L01-06	A	clean; good no-leaves case.
L01-07	A	"green frog" is a fair lure.
L01-08	B	clean.
L01-09	A	soil-food misconception; clean.
L01-10	C	clean.
L01-V-01	B	clean gate.
L02-01	C	A soil tempting-wrong.
L02-02	A	clean.
L02-03	B	clean.
L02-04	A	clean.
L02-05	B	clean.
L02-06	A	clean; plants-as-food case.
L02-07	B	clean.
L02-08	B	clean.
L02-09	B	algae bin: producer, so not a consumer; one honest bin.
L02-10	A	clean.
L02-V-01	A	clean.
L03-01	A	clean.
L03-02	B	clean; live worm.
L03-03	B	clean.
L03-04	B	clean.
L03-05	A	mushroom: not a plant; one bin.
L03-06	B	clean.
L03-07	B	moss: stem says makes own food, so producer; one bin.
L03-08	A	clean.
L03-09	C	clean.
L03-10	A	key is the only option with "and" and longest by a clause; shape tell.
L03-V-01	A	clean.
L04-01	A	clean.
L04-02	C	B "by itself" good lure.
L04-03	B	C "leaves use them to make food" is the right lure; fine.
L04-04	B	"nutrients" first named here, stem defines it; C is the food misconception, good. Stem prints "plant roots take the bits in" = L04-03 and L04-06 keys.
L04-05	A	clean.
L04-06	B	GIVEN AWAY: L04-04 stem states this sentence as fact; L04-03 key also says it.
L04-07	A	clean; no key calls bits food.
L04-08	A	C absurd.
L04-09	C	clean.
L04-10	B	clean.
L04-V-01	A	clean gate.
L05-01	A	card gives the feeding, not the role; fine.
L05-02	C	clean.
L05-03	A	tiny things in soil/log: feed on dead; one bin.
L05-04	A	card fine.
L05-05	B	clean.
L05-06	A	clean.
L05-07	B	card fine.
L05-08	A	clean.
L05-09	B	eagle is a consumer; clean.
L05-10	A	clean.
L05-11	B	"role" printed in ten stems above; answered from the page.
L05-V-01	C	clean.
L06-01	B	clean; before any legend.
L06-02	B	1 arrow (small fish → heron); legend does not answer it.
L06-03	B	clean.
L06-04	B, D	two right; clean.
L06-05	A	clean.
L06-06	A, B	two right; clean.
L06-07	C	clean.
L06-08	C	clean.
L06-09	A	legend on L06-02..08 prints the convention just above; soft give-away.
L06-10	food web	"food web" printed in L06-02..08 stems.
L06-11	C	prints L06-10's answer; safe only if order is fixed.
L06-V-01	A	clean.
SUMMARY-01	C	clean.
SUMMARY-02	A	clean.
SUMMARY-03	B	clean.
PR-01	C	clean.
PR-02	B	clean.
PR-03	B	clean; before the PR-09 legend.
PR-04	B	clean.
PR-05	A	clean.
PR-06	A	clean.
PR-07	A	clean.
PR-08	B	clean; living lettuce.
PR-09	A, C	two right; clean.
PR-10	B	clean.
PR-11	First, mold and tiny living things (decomposers) fed on the dead trunk and broke it into tiny bits; the bits went into the soil; the grass roots took them in and the grass used them to grow.	Award: decomposers break it up / bits into soil / roots take in.
PR-12	A	clean.
PR-13	A	clean.
PR-14	C	clean.
PR-15	A	B food misconception as lure; good.
PR-16	food web	"food web" printed in PR-09/10 stems.
PR-17	C	prints PR-16's answer; order-dependent.
PP-01	B	clean.
PP-02	C	clean.
PP-03	D	clean.
PP-04	A	clean.
PP-05	C	B "water" tempting-wrong; strong student says plants do not eat.
PP-06	B	clean.
PP-07	B	clean.
PP-08	D	clean.
PP-09	D	clean.
PP-10	B	clean.
PP-11	C	clean.
PP-12	A	card fine.
PP-13	B	one true reason; A, C, D false.
PP-14	A	clean.
PP-15	D	one true reason now; A, B, C false. Fixed.
PP-16	D	clean.
PP-17	A	one true; colon is the only one but B is longer, no length tell.
PP-18	A	near-twin of L03-10; options even.
PP-19	C	clean.
PP-20	A	one true; key is the only option with "and" (mild).
PP-21	D	clean.
PP-22	B	clean.
PP-23	A	clean.
PP-24	A	clean.
PP-25	B	D "to make its food" is the right lure; one true.
PP-26	A	clean.
PP-27	C	card fine.
PP-28	C	card fine.
PP-29	B	plastic flower: one bin.
PP-30	D	clean.
PP-31	A	clean.
PP-32	C	clean.
PP-33	A	clean.
PP-34	A	clean.
PP-35	C	clean.
PP-36	C	clean.
PP-37	A	clean.
PP-38	B	GIVEN AWAY: legends on PP-33..37 print "from the food to the one that eats it".
PP-39	B	clean.
PP-40	A	vine on a dead cactus: a plant, so not a decomposer; one bin, but the vine has no feeding verb, so it leans on recall.
PP-41	A	clean.
PP-42	C	A food misconception lure; good.
PP-43	D	B "water" tempting-wrong; one true.
PP-44	C	clean.
PP-45	A	one true.
PP-46	D	clean.
PP-47	D	clean.
PP-48	A, B, C	three right; D not; clean.
PP-49	A, C	two right; clean.
PP-50	B, C	two right; clean.
PP-51	B	clean.
PP-52	A	clean.
PP-53	A	one true; C false (no arrows into weeds).
PP-54	food web	"food web" printed in every PP web stem above.

Adversarial answers (typed items)

item	correct answer 1	correct answer 2	correct answer 3
L06-10	a food web	food webs	foodweb
PR-16	the food web	food-web	food webb
PP-54	a food web	foodweb	fude web

Cross-item notes

Arrow convention: every web description runs food → eater; every legend says so. No legend hands over an asked arrow or a role. Arrow counts checked card by card.
Terms: "producer", "consumer", "decomposer" each appear first as the answer of a definition item on their own lesson's quiz; "nutrients" first at L04-04 with the stem defining it; "role" is in ten stems before L05-11 names it; "food web" is in web stems before each typed item names it.
Typed items: L06-10, PR-16, PP-54 all have their answer printed in earlier stems on the same page. The following MCQ (L06-11, PR-17) also prints it, so the order must stay fixed.
Give-aways: L04-04 stem → L04-06 (and L04-03); PP-33..37 legends → PP-38; L06-02..08 legends → L06-09 (soft).
Shape tells: L03-10 (only "and", longest); PP-20 (only "and"), mild.
Names: Seth / Troy / Sloane read apart; Seth and Sloane share an initial only.
Food misconception: no key calls the tiny bits the plant's food (L04-04, L04-07, PR-15, PP-25, PP-42 all keep it as the lure).

Would not ship as is: L04-06, PP-38.