About ten minutes if useful. Pause, repeat, change or finish anytime.
Say this, or use your own words
How shall we welcome a new visitor?
More words, only if useful: A new visitor is coming to a pretend place. What would help it know where to go or what to do? We can make a little guide with one picture, one message or a story. It can stay private if you prefer.
Ready in a moment
The three-panel guide aid, a blank page or an oral/sign route. Start a fresh place if earlier work is not wanted. No folding, reading test, visitor performance or public sharing.
A loose play path
- 0–2 minutes: Welcome an imaginary new visitor together, with the child choosing whether it enters, waits or does something else. Ask what it needs to know only if that extends the play. Offer one useful guide part; no completed world or prior guide needed.
- 2–5 minutes: Make one useful guide part. The panels are optional space, not three required items. Ask ‘What should our visitor notice?’ and keep the child's meaning with the mark or message.
- 5–8 minutes: Use the guide in a pretend visit if wanted. The adult names what they can actually follow from it, and asks about unclear parts. A fictional visitor's reply is not a real user review.
- 8–10 minutes: Keep or change one part, or finish. A private guide or a partly made message is useful; no correct lettering or neat fold required.
Choose the useful route
- Draw or arrange: Use one broad panel for an entrance picture or waiting sign and explain its meaning. Another panel can remain empty. A child can direct the adult to place it beside an imagined entrance; selecting a layout is distinct from independently drawing it.
- Tell, sign or point: Give a visitor one spoken, signed or AAC instruction using the child's familiar mode. The adult checks the intended place or action and follows the pretend instruction. It can remain an oral guide with no printed product.
- Small start or no materials: Ask ‘What is one thing our visitor should know?’ Accept a pause, an own idea or no guide today. Play one short welcome if chosen, with the child deciding whether a real willing play partner is invited.
Two ideas to borrow or change
- Museum: A child creates an imaginary room of interesting stones and guides a visitor to a drawn viewing patch. No actual stones are collected; the guide can be one spoken direction.
- Repair fiction: A visitor to a made-up toy workshop is asked to leave its imaginary toy by a large doorway mark. This is a pretend instruction, not safe handling or repair advice for a real object.
Notice, then choose the next move
Notice the selected recipient, information and agreed meaning. Optional actual partner response can inform another try; imagined praise is not evidence of usability.
Later, with or without this session: Make a new one-part guide for a fresh imaginary place. This does not depend on a completed world or earlier guide.
More play, only if wanted: Offer a willing familiar partner the guide and ask what they understood, with the child's permission. Keep their actual response separate from a pretend visitor's dialogue.
Optional aid: One useful thing for a visitor · exact text alternative
Adult intention: Choose useful information for an imagined recipient and represent it in a chosen form.
All starts · Parent guide · Play helper · Sources and limits
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