One last post to let you know that all of our photo albums for this year have been shared with you and I have just sent the link for all the videos this morning. Unfortunately, there are no title/ cover for each video, just a black blank space, but if you hoover your cursor over each the video will start with the title page. I suggest downloading these to your own computer and possibly burning a CD or two to share with other family members for safe keeping. Enjoy!

If you were to ask any teacher when the beginning and the end of the year were they would say September and June respectively. Not December and January. But the feelings that surround September and June are similar to those we feel at Christmas and New Year's. September is full of expectation and excitement and enthusiasm just as the beginning of January is. A setting of new goals and looking forward to what may happen in the future. June also holds a feeling of expectation but its that of endings and new beginnings to come, similar to those at the end of December. Of reflecting back at what has happened and deciding how to change and get better in the new year. 
Of course there are other feelings in June as well. Like pride in seeing our little peeps move onward and upward but also sadness that their journey through Kindergarten is over. Like anxiety over what the new year will bring and how everyone will manage. Like thankfulness for the friends and memories that have been made. And enthusiasm for new learning and adventures to come. 
Team Awesome and I have been discussing all of these things the past few weeks, as I am sure you have been at home,  and they have been feeling all the feelings just as strongly as I have been. And while I know that a strong academic foundation gained in Kindergarten will carry the children confidently through their primary years and beyond, I am conscious that the friendships and social skills they have gained this year will be just as valuable, if not more so. Because ultimately, life is about connections with others. About caring and compassion and empathy. The friendships and social skills Team Awesome has negotiated this year are going to extend far beyond the walls of our classroom and into their future. And while their teacher and classroom and possibly school may change, their friendships will be there to see them through. 
And I would like to thank you, Parents, for trusting me with such an important job. To have faith that I would stand by and guide your children through their first, important, year of school with as much love and pride as you yourself would. It is no small thing I ask of you in September- to transfer your child's hand from yours to mine and know that they will be safe and cared for the time that they are away from you and returned happy and smiling and bursting with things to tell you. So thank you for your trust and support this year and I know that Team Awesome's journey, and yours, through learning and the education system will be successful. Have an awesome summer and I will see you next September!

So. I have sent you a number of links (6 to be exact) to our photo albums. 2 more albums keep giving me a 'Trouble sending photos. Try again later' message and I have endeavored to resend a number of times and get the same message. I am hoping that it will eventually work and you will not receive 900 million emails from me for the same 2 albums. There will be 8 albums in total when they are all sent and possibly another one later this week or early the next once I have finished with the photos for this week. I am hoping I have everyone's email addresses correct but if someone mentions they didn't get the links please let me know. I have yet to get the video album completed but will share it when it is done. After next week I will hardly check my work email for the summer so if you are having troubles it might have to wait until the fall. Fingers crossed it all works!

​For Primary Fun Day on Friday Team Awesome was put into mixed groups of K-3 students and a teacher led each group. Because I was responsible for a group, I was unable to get many pictures of all of the children, other than those with me and some in the groups before and after us, so the first video is light on pictures of all of team Awesome. And as for the second one... well, those kids move fast.

In the past I have burned a CD containing the photos and videos for the year and put it in the year end report card envelopes of every child in my class. It was hours of work the last week of school, fraught with various difficulties. Last year it was necessary to buy a new computer and it does not have a CD burner, raising the question of how to get all the photos to you so you can download, save or print them as you wish. Naturally, I put off making any decisions of how to go about this until last week when I had a slight panic attack (although it had been niggling away at the back of my brain for a good month or so and I had been trying my best to ignore it). Google photos to the rescue! I am attempting to transfer all (11,000!) of the photos I have taken this year into albums on Google Photos and give you access to them. This has had a learning curve as I have discovered Google Photos is not the most user friendly. However, some time in the next little bit (when, not if, I have them done) you will receive a number of emails from me giving you access to every album (each holds approx 2,000 photos) from which you should be able to download and print whichever photos you like, without editing them in the album in any way. Have fun sorting through all those pictures for your favourites and revisiting all of our Kindergarten adventures this year!