A Ready-to-Use A2-A2+ Unit
Mr Men in London by Roger Hargreaves is, on the surface, a picture book. In practice, it’s a goldmine for A2-A2+ secondary students: a real narrative, rich vocabulary, cultural content about London landmarks, and enough Mr Men chaos to keep a class genuinely entertained. Planning a cultural sequence before the summer break? This one holds up.
I built this unit to do two things: give students a memorable encounter with a real English book, and sneak in solid grammar and vocabulary work while they’re having fun. Yes, both at the same time.
Here’s how it works.
Key takeaways
✅ A full unit built around a real picture book, no invented texts
✅ Past simple taught in context, not in isolation
✅ A jigsaw structure that puts every student in expert mode
✅ Animal idioms with a cross-cultural twist students won’t forget
✅ A creative final task they actually want to finish
Table of Contents
Why Mr Men in London works for A2-A2+ learners
Picture books aren’t just for young learners. For A2-A2+ secondary students, they offer something textbooks rarely do: a real text, written by a real author, with visual support that makes comprehension accessible without dumbing anything down.
Mr Men in London gives you:
- A natural past simple context: the narrative is packed with past tense verbs used meaningfully, which makes grammar work feel purposeful rather than arbitrary
- Rich cultural content: London landmarks, British settings, recognisable characters your students already know
- A readable length as students can encounter the whole book in a single lesson without feeling overwhelmed
- Built-in humour, which, at secondary level, is never a disadvantage
The unit takes students from first encounter with the book all the way to producing their own Mr Men story. It works beautifully as an end-of-term project, a London or travel-themed cultural week, or a standalone unit whenever you want something different from the textbook.
Activity 1: Hook & Activate
Best for: Opening the unit, building anticipation, activating prior knowledge.
Why it works: Students arrive at a text with more energy when they’ve been made curious first. Mystery images and a quick knowledge check give them a reason to care before the book even appears.
How to use it:
1. Show mystery images connected to London and the Mr Men characters but don’t reveal the book yet.
2. Run a stand-to-signal activity to surface prior knowledge: “Stand up if you’ve heard of Mr Men.” “Stay standing if you’ve ever seen a London bus.” You get the idea.
3. Reveal the book. Set up a KWL chart as a class and students fill in the Know and Want to know columns together.
4. Read the book aloud, or have students follow along. Keep it light. This is the discovery part.
What students get: A low-stakes, high-curiosity entry point. By the time grammar work begins, they’re already invested.
Activity 2: Story comprehension
Best for: The lesson after the initial reading, checking global understanding before zooming in on language.
Why it works: At A2 level, whole-story understanding has to come before detail work. Students need to hold the narrative in mind before you ask them to do anything analytical with it.
How to use it:
- Run a whole-class discussion: what happened? Which character did what? Where did they go in London?
- Use open, guiding questions to check understanding — not an interrogation, a conversation.
- Students complete the Learned column of their KWL chart.
What students get: A shared, clear understanding of the story.
Activity 3: Past simple through the story
Best for: Grammar work with students who are just discovering the past simple or who know the rules but aren’t using them yet.
Why it works: Grammar lands differently when it comes from a text students already know and care about. Instead of drilling isolated sentences, students are noticing and reusing language they’ve genuinely encountered in context.
How to use it:
- Draw students’ attention to the past tense verbs in the book. There are a lot and this is part of what makes Mr Men in London so useful for grammar work.
- Work on form and meaning: how do we build the past simple? What does it tell us here, in this sentence?
- Students practice using past simple to tell their own story at the end of the unit.
What students get: Grammar in context, not in isolation. The book becomes the reference point which makes it far easier to remember than a random example sentence from a worksheet.
Activity 4: Jigsaw WebQuest, becoming London experts
Best for: Building research skills in English, structured speaking practice, cooperative learning.
Why it works: The jigsaw model is one of the most effective cooperative structures available because every student has a role that matters. There’s no hiding. And the London angle gives students something genuinely worth researching, especially before the summer.
How to use it:
1. Divide the class into 4 groups. Each group receives a WebQuest focused on a specific topic from the book: transport, London landmarks, British culture, and Mr and Little Miss characters.
2. Each group becomes the class expert on their topic. They research, take notes, and prepare an intermediate task: a poster or a guessing game to present to the rest of the class.
3. Groups present. The rest of the class takes notes because collective consolidation tasks come next and everyone is accountable.
4. Run whole-class consolidation activities to ensure every student retains what each group shared.
What students get: Real research practice in English, genuine speaking time for every student, and a reason to actually listen when their peers present.
Activity 5: Animal idioms and the comparative of equality
Best for: Vocabulary enrichment, grammar (comparative of equality), cultural awareness, character description writing.
Why it works: Idioms are the vocabulary students remember precisely because they’re vivid and slightly odd. Anchoring the lesson to the book, “as loud as a lion” appears in the story, makes the introduction feel natural rather than bolted on.
How to use it:
- Start with the idiom from the book: as loud as a lion.
- Introduce the structure: as + adjective + as + noun.
- Teach a set of animal idioms: as quiet as a mouse, as proud as a peacock, and others you choose (some of them are in the teacher’s guide).
- Students use these idioms to describe the Mr Men characters which is a good practice that connects back to the story.
- Then open it up: do these idioms exist in your language? Are the animals the same? This is where the lesson gets interesting. Students discover that different languages use different animals to express the same idea. It sparks conversation and genuine curiosity.
What students get: A memorable vocabulary set, grammar practice with the comparative of equality, and a moment of cross-cultural awareness that stays with them.
The final task: Mr Men in your capital city
Best for: Extended writing, creative production, consolidation of the whole unit.
Why it works: Asking students to write their own version of the story, set in their own capital city, is the kind of task that actually means something to them. It’s personal. It’s creative. And it draws on everything they’ve done during the unit: past simple, descriptive language, London knowledge, idioms.
How to use it:
- Students receive a printable flipbook to fill in.
- They write a short story about Mr Men visiting their capital city while using past simple, descriptive language, famous landmarks, and ideally some of the animal idioms from the previous activity.
- The flipbook format matters: having a real book-like object to complete raises the quality of student output. Pride in the final product shows up in the work.
What students get: A completed creative piece that consolidates grammar, vocabulary, and cultural knowledge from the whole unit. And something they’ll actually want to keep.
Grab your free London matching worksheet
Before you start the unit, I’ve put together a free worksheet to go with it.
Students match images of famous London monuments with their written descriptions, a simple activity that works on reading comprehension, vocabulary, and cultural awareness in one go. Use it as a warm-up before the Hook & Activate session, or send it home as an introduction to the London setting before you start reading the book.
And if you want the complete unit (Hook & Activate, WebQuest, idioms, the flipbook, and everything in between):