Students will undoubtedly have many questions as they read The Day You Begin. This mini lesson will help students to clarify their questions as they relate to the plot and feelings of the characters.

Knowing how to make connections to deepen comprehension is an important reading skill. Use this lesson plan to help students practice making meaningful connections with themselves, the world, and other texts.

Students will be able to follow Angelina's transformation from a shy girl to a happy friend while practicing their synthesizing skills as they read and comprehend the text.

Jacqueline Woodson uses several text structures in The Day You Begin. This lesson helps students to identify description, cause/effect, sequence, compare/contrast, and problem/solution, to deepen their understanding of the text.

Jacqueline Woodson's vibrant description helps students create mental images that they can connect to the vivid illustrations in The Day You Begin. Use this lesson plan to help students practice their visualization skills.

This word work lesson plan and set of teaching resources use The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson as a springboard for instruction focused on suffixes.

By anchoring word study to the text, students will benefit from seeing how words ending in -er are used inside of the text before engaging in both guided and independent practice with suffixes.

This set of vocabulary development resources for The Day You Begin highlights the words that are most important for students to know and understand while reading the book. Through engaging in fun word games, matching words to definitions and pictures, and practicing how to categorize words, students will develop the vocabulary necessary to comprehend this story and many others.

Use this Common Core aligned comprehension assessment to evaluate students' comprehension of The Day You Begin.

Use this Running Record to assess oral reading fluency with The Day You Begin. Track meaning, structure, and visual accuracy using the first 100 words of the text to determine whether or not this book is a good fit for the readers in your classroom.

In The Day You Begin, Angelina is a girl with big curly hair and brown skin, who feels like she doesn't fit in. Angelina listens to the other kids in her class describe their travels to Paris, Maine, and India and is afraid to share her summer of reading and taking care of her little sister. It's not until Angelina makes an unexpected connection with one of her classmates that she learns the secret to making friends lies in sharing your story and connecting with others. 

When paired with the text, this worksheet is the perfect ice-breaking activity to use during the first week of school or anytime you want to focus on meaningful community building.