The challenge to write poems about animals, birds and fish in Aotearoa has proved to be one of my most popular challenges ever and I am still working my way through all your emails.
I know you are all checking my blog to see if I picked your poem and I am hoping to get the post up today but I may not finish until tomorrow.
I have decided to break my post into two parts and share a bunch of fabulous poems from Royal Oak Primary School first. The poems are from the Kahikatea room (Y5 and 6 students).
We were inspired by Gavin Bishop’s new book Wildlife of Aotearoa (Puffin) and I am pretty sure he will be inspired by these.
The students have done utterly magnificent eye-catching artwork to go with the poems. Each illustration is alive with colour and movement. Looking at these fills me such joy I feel the children must have filled with joy to create them.
The poems are equally exquisite. The words are gifts for ears and eyes as the poems sound good and also build a striking picture of the animal, bird or fish in your head as I read. The poems have been so beautifully crafted. Lines leap out at me, similes catch my attention.
I love these poems so much I am a sending a copy of Groovy Fish to the class and I put all the names in a hat and picked out Abigail to get a copy too.
This is poetry magnificence! And it makes me so happy. Thank you!
Poetry Box 
These poems are amazing!!! Well done everybody.