Skill: write-like-james @ cca3af6 · the build: write-lesson, write-mcqs, write-video-script, write-intro, write-summary @ c83cbd2; the non-author review and fix pass: review-lesson, review-questions, review-figures, review-accuracy, review-physics @ cca3af6
Topic 25 "How matter loops and energy flows through" — 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 Trace a food's energy back to the Sun | LIF5-012 | Go back one eater at a time. Each food transferred its energy to its eater. The first plant used the Sun's light. Every food's energy came from the Sun. |
| L02 Trace the stuff round the loop | LIF5-013 | Matter is the stuff a thing is made of. From the air, the water and the soil into a plant. Into the eater, then into the decomposers. Back into the soil and the air for the next plant. |
| L03 Matter loops, energy flows through | LIF5-014 | The stuff comes back round. The energy does not come back round. Fresh energy comes only from the Sun. Matter loops, energy flows through. |
The intro script (116 words, about 58 s)
Here's Ada in her grandma's backyard in Ohio, in spring. Last fall, the leaves came down, the garden went brown, and the rabbits ate the last lettuce. Now the beds are full of new leaves, and the rabbits are back. Year after year, the garden grows again. So where does all the stuff for the new leaves come from, year after year? And where does the energy come from? Every field, pond and forest grows again the same way. To find out, we will look at where a food's energy came from, where the stuff in living things goes, and what comes back round. Okay, so are you ready to find out what comes back round?
The question types (from TYPES_G5T25.md)
- Type 1 (easy · MCQ, the fixed "where it came from" set (two items); a two-eater trace; what carried the energy to the plant · 012): where a food's energy came from, in the end; what carried the energy to the vine — the Sun / the store / the soil / the kitchen (fixed, the key moves); the Sun's light / the rain / the soil's tiny bits / the wind
- Type 2 (easy · MCQ · 012): which living thing comes one step back from a food — four living things or people
- Type 3 (easy, medium · MCQ · 012): where a food's chemical energy transferred to when it was eaten; a two-eater trace back to the Sun; the missing step in a trace — four receivers; four traces; four steps
- Type 4 (medium · MCQ with a drawn energy trace card (one blank box) · 012): which belongs in the blank box — four things
- Type 5 (hard · typed · 012, 013, 014): the thing every food's energy came from; the kind of energy all food has; the one word for living things that break dead things into bits; the word for the stuff a thing is made of; the kind of energy warm air gains; the thing a loop's fresh energy comes from — Sun / chemical / decomposers / matter / thermal / Sun, with article forms and child spellings
- Type 6 (easy, medium · MCQ · 013): who breaks a dead thing into bits; what decomposers give off into the air; which part takes in water and bits, which takes in carbon dioxide; where an eaten thing's stuff is; what "matter" means; where a dead thing's stuff goes; where a new branch's stuff comes from; how stuff gets from the air back into a plant — four single answers
- Type 7 (medium, hard · MCQ with a drawn stuff ring (one blank box); an ORDER item; a two-step chain · 013): which belongs in the blank box; the loop's stages in order from the plant; what is true of an old pear and a new pear a year later — four things; five stages; four single statements
- Type 8 (hard · MCQ, the claim form ("X is wrong. What is the correct reason?") · 013, 014): Zeke's claim that a walnut tree's new wood is soil packed together (register SD-2, induced); Ada's claim that a forest's energy goes round and round (register SD-2, induced) — four single-statement reasons
- Type 9 (easy, medium, hard · MCQ · 014): which kind of energy warm air gains; where a loop's fresh energy comes from; what happens to the energy at every step; where some of an eaten thing's energy ends up; where the decomposers' energy ends up; which one thing goes from the soil and the air back into a plant; what rotted plants give next year's plants; at which steps energy ends up as thermal energy; what comes in fresh from outside; a two-step chain; what runs short under snow-covered ice — four single answers
- Type 10 (medium, hard · MCQ with a drawn ring and its energy layer; a multi-select; two drawings judged · 014): which arrow carries energy into the loop; which orange arrow is drawn wrong (twice: a described poster and a drawn pond); the TWO true sentences; whose drawing is right — four arrows; four sentences (two keyed); Zara's / Zeke's / both / neither
Three lessons for three atoms, one idea with two halves, with Zara, Zeke and Ada and Miss Yilmaz's class.
Zara bites a burger at a cookout, so L01 traces its energy back one eater at a time: the cow, the grass, the Sun; then the same steps on scrambled eggs and on an orange.
Zeke's fallen apple goes soft, brown and moldy and by spring is gone, so L02 follows the stuff: into the decomposers, into the soil and the air as tiny bits and carbon dioxide, and back into the tree's new apples; then a squirrel is added to the same ring.
Ada draws the stuff loop and says the energy goes round too, so L03 draws the energy onto her loop: the Sun's light in, food along, thermal energy out at every step, and no orange arrow back from the soil and the air. Matter loops, and energy flows through.
No new word is coined; "matter", "decomposers", "carbon dioxide", "chemical energy" and "thermal energy" are recalled, each with one line and one recall-bank item.
The non-author review has been applied (four must-fixes, twenty-one worth-fixings); every gate is at its stated result; the blind read by two cold readers is next. Pictures are placeholders until your script read; the batch is built, checked and not sent (your Life review sample).
Questions for James
none
Rulings made while you were away (yours to reverse)
Applied without asking
The review's fixes (8 Oct 2026): two item drawings that handed over their answer (a blank box in the Sun's warm tint; a LIGHT arrow into a blank box that could then only be a plant — now a pale box with a blank chip on a grey arrow); a bank distractor that named a beetle no stem had; the L02 video now says "Stuff does not vanish." before it asks where the apple's stuff went; "So the rest of the apple went into the air" is now "some of the apple's stuff"; "The bits and the carbon dioxide carry stuff" is now "are stuff, not energy" (carry is the energy word); the video says the rabbit dies before its chemical energy transfers to the decomposers; the clover item no longer says a plant needs light "every day" (it stores food) and its key is one clause; "the Sun" is no longer offered as a living thing; "the fruit bowl" and "into the Sun" are gone as distractors; two quiz stems that leaned on the item before now stand alone; one bank item that was another with the nouns changed is re-designed (almonds: the forward step, the picker, the pollinator as the three wrong answers); "steam" beside "water vapor" is now "oxygen"; "runs short" of energy is "stop getting"; Topic 24's sentence "A plant's body is built mostly from the air and from water, not from the soil." is reused word for word in L02, the recall item and two bank items; the ring drawings' chips grew from 10 to 12 units and sit clear of the boxes and the diagonal arrows, and the legend reads "Orange arrows: the energy moves." Keys unchanged throughout.
Standing rules checked and holding: the Sun's light carries energy; each food transferred its chemical energy to the eater that ate it (the receiver always named); the hotter thing heats the colder thing; thermal energy named every time; nothing "has no energy" or is "used up"; "energy source", never "giver"; decomposers give off carbon dioxide as a fact of the loop; "stuff" beside "matter"; no "leak", "lift", "snap"; every student sentence has a noun subject and a verb; US spelling; the intro coins nothing and ends on the ready line and the poll; the summary opens on the exact line and recaps each rule word for word.
Also on the site
Topic intro and poll (116 words) · summary and three questions (159 words) · mixed practice (12 items, 3 typed, 1 order, 3 Grade 3/4 retrievals) · the PP100 bank (54 items: 46 four-option MCQs, 6 typed, 1 multi-select, 1 order; easy 18 · medium 21 · hard 15; keys A 13 · B 12 · C 12 · D 9) · the type sheet TYPES_G5T25.md · the recall bank (13 items, each tagged with the atom it recalls and the lesson it sits before).
After you answer
Nothing on the page changes if you keep all three. Taking the thermal arrow off the grass is one line in the ring drawer and ten re-renders; the recall verb is two lines; a split of L03 is one more lesson shell and one more video. Either way the next steps are the two cold readers on blind/2026-10-08-reviewed/, your read of the three scripts and the intro, then the picture pass on the eight placeholders and the five-video batch.
What the reviews found, and what changed
The non-author review and fix pass (8 October): 4 must-fix, 21 worth fixing, 8 simplifications left, 11 not an error
The full table is REVIEW_G5T25_2026-10-08.md. The science is right at Grade 5: a food's energy traced to the Sun, the stuff followed into decomposers and back as tiny bits and carbon dioxide, the energy leaving as thermal energy at every step. The ten faults you found in Grade 4 were looked for one by one; the only hits were three vague phrases ("carry stuff", "these living things", "runs short"), all rewritten. The four must-fixes were two item cards whose tint or chip gave the answer away, one dangling distractor, and a set-up line the L02 video owed its quiz. The eight simplifications left are named (the eater box holds "the" stuff, not "some"; the rabbit's energy splits two ways; worms among the decomposers; Grade 4's recall sentence; the grass's thermal arrow — card 1 above). Articles 350 / 368 / 396 → 330 / 354 / 404.
The figures (28 opened on their renders and on the built pages at 1200 and 390 px)
Cards and rings read at a glance; brown closes the ring and orange never does; the LIGHT arrow lands on the plant box; the wrong-arrow rings draw the one wrong arrow beside TAKEN IN and the blind text lists it as data. Fixed: the pig card's green blank box and LIGHT chip, the cat card's warm blank box, the headache card's green box 2; chips 10 → 12 and nodes 14 → 15 (phone legibility was 6–7 px, now 8 and 10 px — still under the 13 px floor; a narrower ring drawer is owed at the next opening); BROKEN INTO BITS off the box corners; the three-node ring's chips beside, not on, the diagonal arrows; the legend in one frame. The page forces one colour scheme, so one shot per route.
Gates after the fixes
build_tools_check_topic.py 0 FAIL, 32 WARN (S46 A = 0, B = 0) · build_tools_check_terms.py hits {} · check_g5_articles.py 0 FAIL · check_key_tells.py 0 of 97 flagged · check_svg_ids.py PASS · check_lessons.py 0 FAIL, S118 silent · check_parallel.py PASS on the L03 frame · names: one child per name · bank freshness 0 hits · blind-text grep 0 hits · bundle re-cut (83 mcq, 9 text, 4 order, 1 multi; held 97) · batch rebuilt (5 videos, key string B A A B B A), check_brief.py every video ✓ with the two standing notes. Not sent; not committed.