JEANNIE Lawrence has been a kindergarten teacher for 22 years and sees magic happen every day in her classroom.
"I just love this age group, it's the most exciting to teach," Mrs Lawrence said.
"I've very much missed the shine in their eyes when they grasp a new concept.
"To just see them learn something and to see that spark get ignited and go 'Oh! That's how that works!', I miss having that moment with them."
When the state moved to remote learning, Avondale School's Mrs Lawrence wanted to find ways to ensure her class of 20 stayed engaged with and excited about their learning.
They met for a 30 minute lesson on Zoom every morning, where they prayed and did maths, language and physical education activities.
Fantastic Fun Friday was a highlight -they wore moustaches the week they learned about the letter M.
"One day someone had lost a tooth and then everybody had their faces right up in their Zoom cameras trying to show me which tooth was wobbly and which ones had fallen out," she said.
"I'm so grateful we've had the technology to be able to do that, but I can't wait for them to be back for real."
Mrs Lawrence set tasks online and children completed them in physical workbooks.
"Parents made it work for them, I had one little boy who would be basically finished his work by the time I came on at 9am, his family liked to get up early and do it then," she said.
Similarly, resuming face-to-face learning will feel different for each family.
"Some children will take to it like a duck to water, as it is at the beginning of the school year, you have some children where that's their personality type, they're out there, they want to be here with their friends, but I'm sure there will be some kids on Monday feel quite nervous about coming back, but it's the same with all of us, that butterfly in the tummy when something new is happening."
Across NSW, non-essential visitors are not allowed onto school grounds and children will stay in their cohorts.
At Avondale, the three kindergarten classes have their own playground.
Mrs Lawrence is fully vaccinated and said she is not concerned the children won't be.
"We will adhere to all of the health orders and we always have had a policy where we wash our hands before morning tea and we wash our hands before lunch and we sanitise as we come into the classroom, so all of those cleaning things will still be in place."
Mrs Lawrence usually changes her classroom decor every term, but has kept the farm theme that was in place before the children left.
She will introduce a new program where they receive a marble for good behaviour and can pick a prize after collecting 10.
She said her focus would be on wellbeing, routines and an afternoon rest to ease the transition back.
"I think by recess time we'll be doing great, once we get away from having to jump out of the car and having to walk back up into school," she said.
"It will be cool to see how much they've grown and changed and see what their haircuts look like and get to know them all again."
