* ॐ सहनाववतु - Om sahanaavavatu (My prayers, pg. 6)
* वक्रतुण्ड महाकाया - vakratuNDa mahaakaayaa
* सरस्वति नमस्तुभ्यम् - saraswati namastubhayam (My prayers, pg. 44)
* गुरुर्ब्रह्मा - gururbrahmaa (My prayers, pg. 9, 3rd shloka of 'gurustotram')
* बुद्दिर्बलम् - buddirbalaM
Meditation: 1 minute
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1, 2, 3
Story: taaTakaa in danDakaaraNya; maarIcha subaahu
Words of the week: taaTakaa; danDakaaraNya; maarIcha; subaahu
Activity: Coloring pages of sage vishvaamitra with raama and lakShmaNa; raama and lakShmaNa slaying subaahu and wounding maarIcha
Game time: 4 corners, but with a twist - hands and feet represented the 4 corners and the children had to lift their respective limbs when the words of the week were called out ;); raamaH vadati
End of class:
- ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.
Comments:
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
It's Sunday morning again! It was a busy morning with lots of activities. We started off with 3 ॐ-s and the beginning prayers. The ॐ-s are getting longer and longer kids. That's good! They also remembered the chinmudraa, the way they keep the hands during meditation. After meditation, we learnt the geeta chapter-11. We had already learnt the first 2 verses. We added the 3rd one today. The kids are pronouncing well, looks like some of them are practicing at home. Keep it up kids and make sure you all practice regularly.
In the story time, we heard about how sage vishvaamitra took raama and lakShmaNa with him. In danDakaaraNya (forest), they slayed the demoness taaTakaa. Once again the forest rejuvenated to its original splendor. Then during vishvaamitra's yagna, raama - lakShmaNa killed subaahu and threw maarIcha far far away, with an arrow. After that,... to be continued... ;)
Today, the children started to learn how to write 'राम' in Sanskrit! They did very good. Parents, we can not emphasis enough, the need to send all the supplies with them regularly. Some of the children did not have their note books with them. Without that, they will not be able to practice all the new things we shall learn. Please make sure they come prepared to each class.
Then they did their coloring tasks beautifully. During game time, we played the 4 corners game, with a spin ;). Their limbs were representing the different corners and they had to raise it according to whatever name that was called. Boy, do we have some attentive kids or what! They had a blast with the game.
We ended the class with 'poorNamadaH poornamidam...'. Have a fun week everyone. See you next Sunday!
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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
We had yet another fun filled session this morning. We all started with three ॐ followed by the shlokas. Today we learned one of the shlokas form Sri Gurustotram (verses to the Teacher). We did "tvam-ev mata ca pita tvam-ev". Everyone did very good. Some of us already know this shloka. The meditation session was awesome today. Each one of us sat quietly for one minute and at the end of one minute everyone was able to get the marble count perfectly correct. Almost all of us got a twenty count. (Please ask your child more about how we do our morning meditation and what is the use of marbles in this process).
Geeta Chanting is coming along very well. We did the first two verse. Please continue practicing at home. In the story time we discussed about how King Dashrata allowed young Rama to go with sage Vishvamitra to kill the demons. Guru Vasistha advised the king and the King followed the command of his Guru,trusting it would be for his good.
After the story time some of the kids wanted to sing a bhajan and so we all sang "Subramanyam, Subramanyam". We sang it loud, louder, loudest and then very very gently. All of us got energized for the next activity.
The coloring was a lot of fun. Kids did a wonderful job choosing which crayon they wanted to use to color the details in the pictures. Since we all had been sitting for a long time we took a game break. We all made a big circle and played "raamaH-vadati" and also Incorporated some yoga moves in between.
We ended the class with likhita japa. We wrote "OM" on a laminated paper. Some of the kids finished one page and wanted to write one more page!! All the kids were absolutely quiet wrtiting and chanting in their minds as instructed. It was amazing to see how these energetic young kids were sitting so quietly and writing their OMs.
We all look forward for the next class. Please do not forget to register in "Walkathon" coming up on the 24th of this month.
Hari OM!
