The Day the Adults Disappeared

Year 4

The Day the Adults Disappeared is a free, NAPLAN-aligned writing resource for Year 4 students. It includes a story starter, complication, tiered vocabulary and scaffolds mapped to the Australian Curriculum (AC9).

Year 4 AC9E4LE05 AC9E4LA06 AC9E4LA04 AC9E4LA12 AC9E4LA11 AC9E4LY06

Supports the Year 4 achievement standard (creating written texts).

Australian Curriculum content descriptions © ACARA. Writesy is not affiliated with or endorsed by ACARA.

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

  • I and the group try to open the council office to find answers, but the door is locked and the keys are missing.
  • Food and water supplies in the shops start to run low, and the group must decide who collects supplies and who protects them from others.
  • A message appears on the town loudspeaker telling children to go to the school oval, but the speaker’s advice seems suspicious and some kids fear a trap.

Sentence starters

  1. Suddenly I heard a strange noise from the supermarket and I ran to see what it was.
  2. The air smelled of petrol and hot bread, and the town felt both strange and heavy as we stood on the corner.

…and 1 more with your free account.

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

NAPLAN writing criteria this resource targets

Audience Text structure Ideas Character and setting Vocabulary Cohesion Paragraphing Sentence structure Punctuation Spelling

See how Writesy aligns to the NAPLAN writing criteria.

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