Skill: write-like-james @ cca3af6 · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, write-summary, write-intro @ cca3af6; the non-author review (review-lesson, review-questions, review-figures, review-accuracy, review-physics) applied @ cca3af6; two cold reads agreed every key and the adjudication is applied @ cca3af6
Topic 4 "How rubbing makes a pull with no touch" — your read (8 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 What rubbing does to a balloon | FOR5-060 | Electric charge on a thing: the thing is electrically charged. Rubbing two things together can leave a thing charged. |
| L02 What a charged balloon can pull | FOR5-061 | A charged object attracts an uncharged object. It pulls the object toward it, without touching it. |
| L03 Two charged balloons: pull together or push apart? | FOR5-062 | Two charged objects can attract or repel, without touching. Two balloons rubbed the same way repel. A rubbed thing and its cloth attract. |
| L04 How to show that a force can act without touching | FOR5-063 | A thing moves, and nothing touched it: a force that doesn't touch. Weight, the magnetic force, a charged object's pull. |
The intro script (115 words, about 58 s)
Here's Elsie on a cold, dry day. She pulls off her wool hat. Her hair rises up and follows the hat. The hat is not touching her hair, and still her hair reaches up toward it. Nothing you can see is pulling her hair. So what pulls it up, and why does it happen only after the hat has rubbed on her hair? A rubbed balloon can do the same thing, and so can a comb. To find out, we will look at what rubbing does to a balloon, what a rubbed balloon can pull, and what two rubbed balloons do to each other. Okay, so are you ready to find out what rubbing does?
The question types (from TYPES_G5T04.md)
- Type 1 (easy · MCQ · 060): what rubbing does to a thing; which action charges it — leaves it electrically charged / makes it wet / makes it heavier / turns it into a magnet; rubbing on a blanket / folding / filling with air / the fridge
- Type 2 (easy · MCQ, the which-word set · 060, 061): which word describes a described thing (charged, uncharged); which word says what it does (attracts) — electrically charged / uncharged / a magnet / sticky; attracts / repels / warms / pushes
- Type 3 (easy, medium · MCQ · 060): where the charge came from; what must be done to charge it; which of two things pulls thread; what left the fur charged; the reason only the rubbed bag pulls — four single answers or reasons
- Type 4 (easy, medium · MCQ, the what-it-does set · 061): what the uncharged thing does near the charged thing (and near an unrubbed one); what the hanging charged thing does near an uncharged block; what a charged ruler pulls — It moves toward it / stays where it is / moves away from it / spins around
- Type 5 (easy, medium · MCQ · 061): when the foil starts to move; what tells you the bag is charged rather than sticky; the reason it pulls all three; what a charged ruler pulls, against a magnet — four single statements
- Type 6 (easy, medium · MCQ, the pair set · 062): what two charged things do (both rubbed the same way; a thing and the wool it was rubbed on; neither rubbed); which observation tells you they attract; what can happen — They attract / They repel / They hang still / They spin around
- Type 7 (medium · MCQ · 062): the correct reason two strips spread apart — four single-statement reasons
- Type 8 (easy, medium · MCQ, the which-force set · 063): which force moved the thing, nothing having touched it (a fall, a jump to a magnet, a jump to a charged bag, a hand's push) — its weight / the magnetic force / a charged object's pull / a contact force
- Type 9 (medium, hard · MCQ · 061, 062, 063): which observation shows a force acting without touching; what is true of both forces; which things Earth pulls; a child's claim is wrong — the correct reason (the three register beliefs); two ideas chained (one strip near two things; which of two pulls the scrap; which force pulls down while the magnetic force pulls sideways) — four single statements
- Type 10 (hard · typed · 060, 061, 062, 063): the one word for what was done to the spoon; the word for what the bag does to the feather; the word for what two ribbons do; the word for what a ribbon and its wool do; the name of the force that pulled the bolt up; the name of Earth's pull on the raindrop — rubbing / attract / repel / attract / magnetic force / weight, each with article forms and child spellings
- Type 11 (hard · multi-select · 063): the TWO forces that act without touching — the magnetic force / a contact force / an object's weight / friction (keys: the magnetic force, an object's weight)
Four lessons for four atoms, in Miss Delgado's class with Dorian, Elsie and Emmett.
Dorian's balloon does nothing over torn-up paper until he rubs it on his sweater, so L01 teaches that rubbing moved electric charge onto the balloon and coins Florida's two words: a thing with electric charge on it is electrically charged; a thing with none is uncharged.
Elsie's rubbed balloon bends a thin stream of water without getting wet, so L02 teaches that a charged object attracts an uncharged object from across a gap, and meets the "rubbing made it sticky" belief with glue: glue pulls only where it touches.
Emmett's two balloons, both rubbed on a scarf, swing apart, and one balloon swings toward the scarf, so L03 teaches that two charged objects can attract or repel without touching, and that two balloons rubbed the same way repel; why some pairs attract and others repel is named as a story for later grades.
Then the capstone: a paper clip jumps to a magnet, an eraser falls, a tissue strip bends to a charged balloon, and nothing touches any of them while it moves, so L04 teaches the routine (what moved, did anything touch it while it moved, which force) and names the three forces in your 8 October words: the magnetic force, the eraser's weight (Earth's pull), the charged balloon's pull.
"Gravity" is never a force's name; the charged balloon's pull has no coined name (your question below).
The non-author review is applied: two must-fixes (a bank item with a second defensible answer by the lesson's own words; two Lesson 1 pictures that printed CHARGED before the coining line) and twelve worth-fixing rewrites, all in the record. Two cold readers then read every item and agreed every key (0 disagreements of 112); their wording notes are applied (the adjudication section of the review record). Pictures are placeholders.
The question for you (built as the author recommended; the reviewer leans the other way)
Calls made for you (yours to reverse; each is one or two lines)
- Four claim items, all keyed No (Emmett: rubbing made the comb sticky; Dorian: charged things always pull together; Elsie: only a magnet pulls without touching; Dorian again in the practice). Each is one of the register's three documented beliefs, one per page; a TRUE twin would be the lesson's own rule in a child's mouth. Kept.
- Both Florida words coined in one frame in L01 ("electrically charged" / "uncharged"). A minimal pair is one frame. Kept.
- Three articles over 300 words (L01 304, L02 338, L04 438). L04 is the capstone with three cases, a table and the magnet-against-balloon check; a subtitle or figure every five idea lines or fewer. Kept, as you kept Topic 27's.
- "Did anything touch it while it moved?" replaces "first" as the routine's second question: Miss Delgado's hand had just been holding the eraser, so "nothing touched it first" was false for one of the three cases.
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 "a charged object's pull". Naming the force is one coining line in L04, one lexicon line, four article lines, three figure chips, one option set and one typed item, then a re-cut bundle for the cold readers. Either way the two cold reads come next, then the picture pass on the eight placeholders, and your notes on the scripts send the six-video batch (Physics: it waits for your word).
What the review found, and what changed
The non-author review (8 October): 2 must-fix, 12 worth fixing, 9 recorded and left
Must-fix, both applied: a bank item asked what a charged bag does near an uncharged wooden block, and the lesson's own line that an uncharged thing pulls nothing made "it hangs still" defensible (recased to a charged bag and a hanging piece of yarn, the taught direction); Lesson 1's before-and-after pictures printed CHARGED and NOT CHARGED three lines before the coining frame (the article now shows them with the verdict layer off; the chipped forms stay for the script's later beat, the rule card and the summary).
Worth fixing, all applied: the capstone's "nothing touched it first" was false for the eraser (now "while it moved", in the headache, the table, the script and three items); the text had the tissue strip lying on the desk while every picture hangs it from a ruler; "none of the three forces touched" said the vague thing (now "each one acted across a gap"); "a contact force" was a quiz option with no line in the topic (one recall line added); the video's glue contrast was not parallel ("sticks" against "pulls"); two stems asked for "the correct reason" that a thing is not sticky (now "which of these tells you the lid is charged rather than sticky?"); one quiz item stated its own answer and repeated an earlier item (a third fluency case on sawdust instead); one stem asked for a reason without saying for which sentence; "charged the same way" in five items implied two kinds of charge, which the topic defers (now "rubbed the same way"); the blurb promised "why two rubbed balloons swing apart", which the topic says is for later grades; Lesson 2's un-rubbed balloon right after the headache's rubbed one is now "another balloon"; and four drawings were cleaned (a balloon drawn through the desk, a thread through a panel title, a label on the desk edge, the table's question).
Recorded and left: the one-kind-of-charge model (charge moves from the sweater onto the balloon, and the scarf is charged too) — the register's model, with the why deferred; Lesson 3's fourth case narrated back in time (the pair run's return crossing); the four No-keyed claims; the article lengths; warmth as a distractor only (rubbing does warm things; heat is not taught here, per the register's cross note); doubled CHARGED chips on two teaching figures; one chip 40 px from its arrow. The full table with every rewrite: REVIEW_G5T04_2026-10-08.md.
The physics and accuracy pass
Checked and clear: a charged object attracts an uncharged one (the strip, the water stream, the ping-pong ball, salt, sawdust, yarn — induction, named only as the pull); two things rubbed the same way repel; a thing and the cloth it was rubbed on attract (balloon and scarf, strip and blanket, ribbon and wool); the hanging key's weight pulls down while the magnetic force pulls sideways; the two-of-four set (the magnetic force, an object's weight); every pull arrow starts at the thing pulled and points at the puller, every push arrow points away; the three force names are your 8 October names; "gravity" appears only as a student's typed word, corrected in the feedback; the register's three documented beliefs (sticky; only attract; only magnets) are met where the lesson line sits, and the catalogue's magnet and falling rows are met by wording. The one simplification is the register's: charge "moves onto" the rubbed thing, with two kinds of charge left to grades 6-8.
The gates after the fixes
Topic checker 0 FAIL (S46 A = B = 0); term sweep hits {}; article checker 0 FAIL; key tells 0 of 108; SVG ids PASS (32 figures); lesson checker 0 S118 FAIL; blind bundle re-cut to blind/2026-10-08-reviewed (112 items held, as before); video batch rebuilt, every video ✓, not sent.
The bank, in brief
52 items in content/G5T04_pp100_bank.py: 45 four-option MCQs, six typed words (rubbing, attract, repel, attract, magnetic force, weight) and one two-of-four select. Per atom: FOR5-060 12 · FOR5-061 14 · FOR5-062 12 · FOR5-063 14. Easy 19, medium 20, hard 13, sorted easy to hard. MCQ keys A 11 · B 15 · C 11 · D 8. Eleven question types, one exemplar each on the type sheet.
The records, in full
The build record and the review record
BUILD_RECORD_G5T04.md (the author's structural decisions, key strings, rules applied, misconceptions used, checker answers) and REVIEW_G5T04_2026-10-08.md (one row per finding with the rewrite and the re-run gates).