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Hedgie’s Surprise Activities and Lesson Plans for 2024

Elementary teachers looking for lesson plans and activities for Hedgie’s Surprise will find this post helpful. It includes resource recommendations, free teaching ideas, and information about the book. You’ll have everything you need to deliver engaging interactive read aloud lessons based on this story.

With a theme of problem solving, this Hedgie’s Surprise picture book by Jan Brett is a favorite in 1st, 2nd and 3rd grade classrooms. It will be a big hit in your classroom too! Learn more about this book below!

Engage Your Students with Hedgie’s Surprise Lesson Plans & Activities in 3 Easy Steps:

  1. Read a summary of Hedgie’s Surprise. You can find it in the section below.
  2. Check out the teaching ideas for reading comprehension strategies, grammar topics and social emotional learning skills that can be taught using this children’s book.
  3. Download the book companion to make lesson planning simple with Hedgie’s Surprise reading comprehension questions, writing prompts, teaching ideas & no-prep extension activities.

HEDGIE'S SURPRISE SUMMARY

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 aways, Henny starts to hear peeping. She realizes that Hedgie hid her eggs in his nest and now they’ve hatched into chicks!

HEDGIE’S SURPRISE LESSON PLAN IDEAS

Each of our 400+ Starts With a Story book companions come with a teacher’s guide to make lesson planning quick and easy, printable worksheets and digital resources that cover ALL of the standards-based reading comprehension skills.

When it comes to writing lesson plans and finding activities for Hedgie’s Surprise, we’ve already done all of the heavy lifting for you.

We found this book was especially good at teaching the topics listed below.

READING COMPREHENSION QUESTIONS

The text-based Hedgie’s Surprise reading comprehension questions focus on: 

  • making predictions
  • summarizing and retelling
  • analyzing character
  • plot | problem and solution
  • asking and answering questions
  • cause and effect

LITERATURE-BASED SOCIAL EMOTIONAL LEARNING LESSONS

We found this story to be a great SEL picture book to promote:

  • problem solving

GRAMMAR, VOCABULARY & WORD STUDY

  • articles
  • adjectives
  • time order words
  • onomatopoeia

HEDGIE’S SURPRISE ACTIVITIES

You’ll receive all of the following resources aligned to the story:

  • comprehension questions
  • 30 writing prompts with themed paper
  • vocabulary activities
  • word study print & go activities
  • ideas for grammar lessons with focus sentence printables
  • social emotional learning discussion topics
  • graphic organizers to target specific comprehension skills and strategies
Hedgie's Surprise
elementary students listening to a picture book being read aloud by their teacher

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Hedgie's Surprise book and activity

BOOK INFO FOR ELEMENTARY TEACHERS

What are the reading levels for Hedgie’s Surprise?

  • Lexile® Measure: AD670L
  • Guided Reading Level: P
  • DRA Level: 36 – 38
  • Accelerated Reader Level (ARC): 3.7 – 3.9

Who is the author? Who is the illustrator?

The book was written and illustrated by Jan Brett.

What genre is Hedgie’s Surprise?

It is a fiction book. You may want to check out our genre activities or read our blog post, How to Teach Genre to Elementary Students.

How many pages are in the book?

The story is 32 pages long.

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