Lucy Calkins inspired a poetry unit for our students in grades 1-3. Each week of her unit inspires children to consider a new “ingredient” or strategy. The unit began with experimenting with looking at ordinary things in a new way. Subsequent classes explored looking at patterns in poetry, music, line breaks and the use of honest and precise words to convey thoughts. We also learned that poets find a big topic that gives them big, strong feelings, and also small objects or moments that hold that big feeling. Finally we compared ordinary language with poetic language. Children chose to write poems about dogs, holidays, Minecraft, beavers, reading and more.