Hedgie's Surprise activities and lesson plan ideas

Our Hedgie's Surprise Activities are now digital for distance learning with editable teaching slides and worksheets based on Jan Brett's book. Read aloud the picture book then use the printables or go paperless with Google or Seesaw to practice standards-based skills.

THIS READING UNIT FOCUSES ON USING THE MENTOR TEXT TO TEACH: 

◼️ READING STRATEGIES

☐ making predictions

☐ summarizing and retelling

☐ analyzing character

☐ plot | problem and solution

☐ asking and answering questions

☐ cause and effect

◼️ SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING TOPICS

☐ problem-solving

◼️ GRAMMAR & LANGUAGE CONCEPTS

☐ articles

☐ adjectives

☐ time order words

☐ onomatopoeia

SUMMARY OF THE MENTOR TEXT: 

One day, the Tomten on the farm got tired of eating porridge for breakfast. He started going into the hen house each morning and taking one of Henny’s eggs. At first, Henny didn’t mind, but then she realized she could never have babies if this kept happening. Thankfully, her friend Hedgie offered to help her trick the Tomten.

When the Tomten came to Henny’s nest each morning, she and Hedgie left a different food for the Tomten. These foods were never enough and left the Tomten feeling hungry. He demanded Henny leave him an egg or he would eat her. The next morning, when the Tomten reached into the nest, he grabbed Hedgie and was stuck by his quills. When the Tomten runs away, Henny starts to hear peeping. She realizes that Hedgie hid her eggs in his nest and now they’ve hatched into chicks!

THIS COLLECTION OF ACTIVITIES and LESSON IDEAS INCLUDES:

➜ Comprehension Questions categorized by reading strategy; text-dependent
➜ Social-Emotional Learning guidance lesson ideas & discussion topics based on the story
➜ Vocabulary Activities with kid-friendly definitions
➜ Grammar Topics selected to align with the text
➜ Focus Sentences use the book & author's craft as a mentor text to improve writing
➜ Lesson Planner summary, background info and planning space

➜ Story Mapping Printable identify character, setting, problem and solution

➜ Making Words Activity Page use any word from the book

➜ Focus Sentence copy work, identifying elements of the sentence, rewriting)

➜ Design a New Book Cover demonstrate understanding of the text by creating an illustration

➜ Predicting Activity primary-ruled and wider-ruled versions
➜ Summarizing Somebody → Wanted → But → Then → Finally

➜ Comparing and Contrasting using a Venn Diagram

➜ Cause and Effect analyze how events affect one another

➜ Visualization illustrate visualizations from the story and support thinking with text-based evidence

➜ Making Connections identify text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections

➜ Thematic Writing Paper Use with the Writing Prompts... Makes a Great Bulletin Board

➜ 2 Sequencing Activities First → Next → Then → Last and Beginning → Middle → End

➜ 2 Vocabulary Activities Vocabulary Booklet and Word Mapping

➜ 2 Character Trait Activities listing traits and supporting traits with text-based evidence
➜ 30 Text-Based Writing Prompts 3 prompts for each of the following types of writing:

• narrative
• persuasive / opinion
• descriptive
• expository / informative
• creative / story writing
• procedure / how-to
• list-making
• letter / postcard writing
• poem
• book reviews

INCLUDED DIGITAL ACTIVITIES:

➜ 5 Teaching Slides to use for instruction (add questions, vocabulary, instructions, etc)

➜ 15 Student Pages for use in Google™️ Classroom or as editable files to create customized printables