Topic 21 "Earth, Moon and Sun, and our place among the stars" — your read (8 October 2026)

The science is right at Grade 5 and nothing the register forbids is said: the model describes the three motions and never explains them ("gravity", "pull" and "weight" appear nowhere); distance is the only reason the Sun outshines the stars and star sizes are never mentioned; a galaxy is an enormous group of stars with gas and dust between; the Milky Way is ours, seen from inside. The three motions are drawn and animated counterclockwise seen from above, as the real system is from above the north pole. None of Grade 4's ten faults appears, nor the quoted child at the top of a lesson.

Must-fix: a map item named "the white star" and "the yellow star" on two stars both drawn yellow (the stars are now the bridge star and the tower star).

Worth fixing, all applied: five item drawings showed two of the same lights in perspective, the far one tiny, so the drawing answered the question before the rule did (those five items say "one looks dim" in the stem and the drawings are gone; the teaching pair stays); the L02 scaffold's steps leaned on the previous stem (each names its model now); four quiz facts lived only in the article while the video is what a student watches by default (one line each in the script, within the cap: the extra thing, the Moon's same path, the same-kind condition, every star seen one by one is inside it), and L04's by-day item was Grade 3's fact, so it moved to the recall bank; the L01 script paraphrased its own coining and test line (now the lexicon's words); L01 and L02 were long (447 and 422 words; now 400 and 393, with the five top views shown at their own width so the L01 page is a third shorter); the one light-time sentence in L04 (eight minutes; four years) taught an untaught idea in one unsupported line and fed no item (cut); Grade 3's lamp strip said SMALLER under a rule that says DIMMER (the chip now says dimmer); one hard bank item leaned on a star that "gives out far more light than the Sun", the factor the NGSS boundary excludes (now the register's own evidence demonstration: two of the same lamps, one near and one far); two bank items were the practice set's items with a noun changed (re-scened: an orange for Earth; "Which of these is the Milky Way?"); the first and second star were letters in disguise; Tess was the claim-maker twice (one is Tariq's); three "says nothing about" lines; "a different Moon"; "circles" for "travels around" in a summary bullet; two clunky stems; the L02 screen cues now name the sense of each motion for the renderer.

Left as simplifications, recorded: the Milky Way as a flat disc (no bulge or halo); "every star you can see one by one is inside it" (true to the naked eye); "about a month / about 12 / about 365" (no sidereal-synodic distinction); "a star pattern" as the fixed parts set's fourth option; the turbine model "with no fan" (a child might blow on it); the animation's slowed paces, said on the chip; the checker's S26 line on L05's typed term (an adapter artefact).

Full table: REVIEW_G5T21_2026-10-08.md. Items changed, for the cold readers (ids only in blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/CHANGED_IDS.md): L02-02 to L02-05, L03-03, L03-04, L03-06, L04-04, PP-08, PP-12, PP-17, PP-23, PP-27, PP-31, PP-39, PP-51, PP-56. No key moved; no item was renumbered.

59 items in content/G5T21_pp100_bank.py: 49 four-option MCQs and 10 typed words (system, Moon, Sun, year, day, dimmer, nearer ×2, galaxy ×2; "Milky Way", "star pattern" and "orbit" recalled by MCQ). Per atom: SR5-032 12 · SPA5-020 11 · SPA5-030 9 · SPA5-031 10 · SPA5-032 9 · SPA5-033 8. Easy 18, medium 23, hard 18, sorted easy to hard and rising with the atom's place. MCQ keys A 15 · B 12 · C 14 · D 8. Twenty-eight types, one exemplar each on the type sheet: which part a model is missing; what to do to find out if a part is needed; the extra thing; what is wrong with a drawn model; which thing in a fresh model spins; what one spin or one trip stands for; the counts in one trip round the lamp; how the same light looks from farther; which of two same lights is farther; a row of lights; two stars on a map; the Sun as far as the others; the evidence; what kind of thing the Sun is and the one reason it outshines the stars; what a galaxy is and which of four things is one; the Milky Way's name, where the Sun is, which sky thing is the Milky Way, why the band looks milky, what is inside it; the four claims by their correct reason; the typed words. Four claim items, every one "X is wrong … What is the correct reason?" with four single-statement reasons; no exception to the verdict-and-reason ban is claimed.

build_tools_check_topic.py 0 FAIL, 35 WARN (every one answered in the review record), S46 A = 0 B = 0 · build_tools_check_terms.py hits {C-not-reused: 1} ("system" not said in L03–L05, which have no system in them) · check_g5_articles.py 0 FAIL (articles 400 / 393 / 258 / 297 / 217 / 239; intro 115; summary 166; scripts 149 / 150 / 141 / 150 / 147 / 149) · check_key_tells.py 0 of 130 flagged · check_svg_ids.py PASS (47 figures, 10 ids, 0 shared) · check_lessons.py --adapter tools/check_adapter_g5.json S118 0 FAIL · names run exit 0 · site builds (6 lessons, 16 practice, 59 pp100, 47 figures); every article and quiz route, the practice, summary, intro and PP100 pages screenshotted at 820 px and read; the three redrawn figures and the L01 page read again · blind bundle re-cut at blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/ (121 mcq, 14 text, 1 frq; held 136) · batch rebuilt (8 videos, check_brief.py all ✓, the summary's standing protected-words note only), not sent.

See REVIEW_G5T21_2026-10-08.md beside this file (findings table with verdicts and rewrites, checks run clear, items changed, gates before and after, article counts before and after).

See BUILD_RECORD_G5T21.md (the author's record, unchanged: structural decisions in place of a blueprint, the design-check-sequence records, the key strings, the rules applied, the misconceptions used by source, the checker results as the author left them) and TYPES_G5T21.md (v2: the changed exemplars for types 9, 14, 18, 21, 26 and 27 and their inventory lines).