Most of the states here in Austria started the school year a week earlier but in Styria (where I live and work) today is the official opening day of schools. The learning center where I work (not a regular school) is open since last week but only to accommodate parents and new pupils who would like to enroll to our courses. Today is the start of our regular lessons.

At the moment, I am assigned to handle 5 groups. Two groups of children ages 2-3, one group of children ages 4-5, another group of children ages 5-6, and one group of children ages 9-10. I haven’t met them all yet but the ones I did are just so sweet and cute.

So five different lesson plans each week. Not a lot… BUT… you see… the learning center where I work for is BIG ON PROPS. Lesson planning is easy but preparing the props could be time consuming and frustrating because you know that you’re not going to be paid for the hours you spend on making props. Of course there are available teaching materials in the learning center I could use but most of them don’t work for me. Maybe someday I’d learn how to work with those available props but right now, I’ll stick with my own props.

This morning, I prepared a simple game for one of my classes to help them revise vocabularies they’ve learned last semester. I spent hours in the internet looking for appropriate props but I ended up making my own “Picture Bingo” because although there are a lot of printable bingo games in the internet, I haven’t found the perfect one.

I had scanned the children’s workbook then used the images to make bingo cards using Microsoft Excel. Right after printing the bingo cards, I laminated them so they’ll survive a few lessons. That was a lot of work for one simple classroom game.

My co-teachers told me that the first year is the most difficult but right after that, I’ll be okay. I think so too. Right now, I see to it that every teaching/learning material I make or buy is reusable so I don’t have to spend time making them again in the future.