The Day the Adults Disappeared

Imagination

The Day the Adults Disappeared is a free, NAPLAN-aligned imagination writing resource for Australian primary students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

It started like any other Saturday, with the sun shining bright and the streets bustling with people. But by lunchtime, everything changed. As I stepped outside, I noticed something strange—there were no adults anywhere. The shops were open, but no one was inside to serve us. The cars were parked, but no drivers could be seen. A group of us gathered on the corner, looking at each other in confusion. And that’s when we realised—every single adult had disappeared. The world was ours now, and we didn’t know whether to celebrate or be terrified.

The complication

The kids quickly realise that, without adults, the rules of the world are no longer the same. They have to figure out how to survive, manage, and take care of themselves in a world that used to belong to adults.
Some kids want to take charge, forming groups and creating their own leadership, while others struggle to make sense of the sudden disappearance.
While exploring, they start to notice strange things happening—like objects moving on their own and mysterious messages appearing in unexpected places.

What's in the full resource

Complications

Brainstorming Prompts

Vocabulary Support

Sentence Starters

Dialogue Prompts

Writing Challenges

Sentence Variety

Creative Twists

Writing Checklist

Reflective Questions

Collaborative Writing Ideas

Printable teacher and student PDFs