Construct a physical pathway to represent Mr Brown’s story-path in this book – one that children can walk along and experience, rather than a 2D image. Try chalking a path on the playground, taping wallpaper to the floor or outlining a path with skipping ropes!

Prepare cards showing key story locations –  office, bench, funfair, bus-stop, tennis courts – then ask children to help you place the cards in the right order along the path. Visit each place and talk about what happened there. Can you think of an action to represent each event? How did Mr Brown go from one location to the next? Walk, ride on a Big Wheel, tricycle…  Can you find an action to represent these movements?

Walk the path together, doing all the actions. Use the experience to help you re-tell Mr Brown’s story, then ask children to draw Mr Brown’s story path and mark the key events.

Part of Mr Bown's story-path             artwork copyright Alison Friend for Nosy Crow

This was a bad day for Mr Brown. What other kinds of day could he have had?

List them: a good day, an exciting day, a difficult day… 

Suggest new words to replace the chosen adjectives (difficult could become challenging, exciting could become thrilling…) or come up with opposites.

Ask each child to illustrate one example using the Mr Brown character, and create a word-bank display.

Mr Brown works in an office - but what does he do?

Talk about the kind of work people do in offices. Where else do people work? What kind of jobs do they do? 

Mr Brown wears a suit and carries a briefcase. Do other people need special equipment for their jobs, or wear special clothes? How many different jobs/occupations can you think of? Pool your ideas. 

How could you find out more? Perhaps someone’s mum or dad could tell you about their job, or you could watch a video.

Working together, design a questionnaire to find out which jobs are done by parents/carers of children in your school. Collect data, then show the results on a table and as a bar graph. Write about what you did and what you’ve learned.

Re-read the “fortunately…unfortunately…” section and talk about it.

Invent more examples of good and bad luck for Mr Brown, then use the construction in a pass-it-on game of oral storytelling about an imaginary school day. Record children’s ideas on a whiteboard, so they can write and illustrate them later.

Explore other pairs of opposites (happily + sadly, quickly + slowly, loudly + quietly) and extend by using in similar ways to generate more stories.

Look at the spreads showing Mr Brown walking through the city streets. 

How do you think he’s feeling? How can you tell? Who else can you see?

Invent reasons why the other characters are walking along the street. 

Where could they be going, and why? What kind of buildings can you see? What else do you notice? Where do you live? Does it look this this? 

Ask children to pretend they’re Very Important People. Can they walk around a large-clear space in a Very Important Way? Talk about facial expressions and body language. Use props – a hat, a bag. Do they help you feel more important?

What do Very Important People think on their Very Important Walks? Ask children to write Very Important Thoughts on ‘bubbles’ cut from white card. Photograph each child in a Very Important Pose holding their thought-bubble, then use your print-outs as a starting point for writing. For example, children could write about what they did, annotate their photo with words describing how they felt in-role, or write a description of their photograph.

Extend by making ‘city-building’ scenery for your Very Important Walks and photo sessions. Paint large cardboard boxes and walk among them, or create a wallpaper frieze as a photographic backdrop.  

Very Important Walks....     artwork copyright Alison Friend for Nosy Crow

What’s important to Mr Brown? Who and what is important to you? Why? 

Talk about ideas and feelings as well as objects, people and places, then ask children to write about Very Important Things and illustrate their work.


More writing prompts...

What happens on Mr Brown’s Good Day?

What is Mr Brown dreaming about?

How would one of the schoolchildren tell this story?

As a group, use the visual and textual information in this book to help you draw a sketchmap of Mr Brown’s city. Talk about the chase and show it as a line on your map.

Look at a map of your neighbourhood and identify key locations. Imagine Mr Brown is chasing his briefcase along your streets. What can he see? 

Invent new episodes for Mr Brown’s Briefcase Chase and set them in locations in your neighbourhood – events that could only happen where you live!  Tell the story of what happens and show these locations on your map. 

Draw a new double spread for this book, featuring your invented episode. Add some text, then extend by asking children to draw maps of imaginary cities and invent stories that happen there.

Before you start, ask children to draw head-and-shoulders self-portraits in the middle of a large, plain sheet of paper - or take similar photos of children pretending to be asleep and print them, one per sheet. 

Talk about bedtime routines. What do your children have in common at this time of day? Do they eat or drink? Brush their teeth? Listen to a story? Watch TV?

Create a shared diagram or timeline showing how your class prepares for bed.

Look at the picture of Mr Brown tucked up in bed. How do you think he's feeling?
Collect words and phrases to describe him, write on sticky notes and add around the illustration.

Give each child their self-portrait 'starter-picture' created earlier, and ask them to turn it into a bedtime illustration like the one Alison Friend has painted of Mr Brown, by drawing a pillow, duvet, teddy etc around themselves.  

Extend by writing about bedtime routines, or describe how it feels to be snuggled up in bed.

Set up a roleplay office with a variety of phones, filing trays and other equipment.

Add dress-up ‘business clothes’ and accessories, such as suit jackets and briefcases. Include a variety of writing materials and invite children to explore, communicate and create!

Make your reading area extra-snuggly with blankets and cushions. Add plenty of soft toys, together with blankets and fabric to wrap them in, plus a collection of really good bedtime stories.

Share the stories as a class and encourage children to read them to the toys. Then learn some lullabies and sing to them!

Play some traditional chasing games in-role as Mr Brown and the children - or why not try a game of Hunt the Briefcase or Tiger’s Footsteps?

Mr Brown chasing his briefcase

What does Mr Brown’s bag look like? Why is it so important? 

Ask children how they know these things. Did they look at the pictures, or listen to the text? Maybe they’re applying knowledge they already have, or making an inference.    

Ask children about bags belonging to family members or friends. What do these bags look like? What are they used for? What would your children keep in a special bag?

Make a collection of briefcases and other bags, and explore them.

• Draw your bags from observation, using different media.
• Look carefully. Describe what you can see. 
• Touch the bags. List words to describe how they feel.
• Tap your fingers on each bag. Listen to the sound your fingers make as you trail them gently across the surface. Open and close the catches. What can you hear?
• How heavy are they? Can you find something that weighs the same as each bag? 
• How wide are they? Measure them. 
• What can they hold? Investigate how many objects will fit inside each bag.
• Order your bags, using a single property - weight, width, capacity etc
• What colours can you see?  Mix paint to match.
• Do these bags remind you of anything? Can you compare them with something? This one is as brown as my dog…as lumpy as a cloud...
• What are these bags made from? Talk about materials.
• Write about one of the bags.
• Use your bags as props in games or roleplay.
• Make a trail of bags for children to follow and hide a PE challenge inside each one 
• Create a treasure hunt by hiding each clue inside a bag
• Hide an object in each bag and ask children to ‘touch and guess’
• Choose a bag and pretend it’s yours. Who are you? Mime your character. 

Make Very Important Bags from paper or card, and decorate them. What would you keep inside a Very Important Bag? Draw the things, cut them out and put them in your bag.