* 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')
Meditation: 1 minute
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1, 2
Story: Birth of raama, bharata, lakShmaNa, shatrughna; their growing years; visit from maharShI vishvaamitra
Words of the week: raama, lakShmaNa, bharata, shatrughna; maharShI vishvaamitra
Activity: Coloring pages of putrakaameShTi yaaga; infant raama, lakShmaNa, bharata, shatrughna with their mothers
Game time: raamaH vadati (see link); 4 corners
End of class:
- ॐ जय जगदीश हरे - Om jaya jagedeesha hare (My prayers, pg. 22).
- ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.
Comments:
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
Activities are in full swing. It is nice to see the enthusiasm of the children when they come into the class with a smile. We started off the class with prayers, followed by meditation. We practiced the 1st two verses of geeta chanting. Parents, we can not emphasis enough, the importance of practice at home. This is a tricky chapter with quite a few tongue twisters :). We will be introducing 2 new shlokas every month, since we have to learn 14 by April. The cd-s are being given out at the front desk. Play them in the car or at home, as often as possible. The kids are so smart that they will involuntarily pick up the words. Within no time, they will be very proficient :).
In our raamaayaNa learning, we proceeded to hear all about the yagna puruSha who came out of the holy fires and gave a bowl of paayasam to king dasharatha. He gave it to kausalyaa and kaikeyI, who both in turn shared it with sumitraa, his third wife. They all begot sons. kausalyaa had raama; kaikeyI had bharata; sumitraa had lakShmaNa and shatrughna. They all learnt vedaas, upanishads, archery, etc. When they were young lads, sage vishvaamitra visited them and asked dasharatha to send raama and lakShmaNa to help him overcome demons. dasharatha reluctantly agreed to send them with maharShI vishvaamitra. We had to stop the story at that as it was time for our activity of the day.
The children colored pictures of the yaaga and infant raama and his brothers. Some of them were so fast that they went ahead and colored sage vishvaamitra with raama and lakShmaNa as well! They all have a book of pictures each. We collect them back every week. That will be their take home book at the end of the year.
They are learning some sanskrit words during game time. We played a game similar to 'Simon says...' but only, it is 'raamaH vadati...' (raama says...) in sanskrit. They got to learn a few verbs and respond accordingly. We then played the 4 corners game with the names of raama and his 3 brothers and finished off with a few stretches.
Parents please make sure you send the 'things to bring' without fail to each class. It will be hard to share crayons, etc during every class.
See you all next Sunday.
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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
Today we had fun and productive session. We started with few yoga stretches so all of us could focus well and have good sitting posture throughout the class duration. This was followed by opening shlokas and meditation. Some of the kids were a little restless and could not sit still but we have talked about the importance of meditation and we will do better next time.Geeta chanting is coming along well. We need to practice at home.
Story session was fun and everyone participated fully. We talked about the "Yagna" Preparation. What is a Yagna and why did Sumitra get twins. Everyone participated and lot of interaction happened between the kids. The best part though was distributing the Ramayana folder where kids are going to be coloring and making projects. It was exciting and kids did a great job writing their names and coloring first and second lessons. At the end of the school year we will give the finished folder back to the kids and it will be a wonderful art project to keep.
The last activity was a fun game called raamaH vadati (raama says.... like Simon says). The details can be found on the blog page. We all had a blast playing this game.We will continue practicing the sanskrit words throughout the year.
Please make a note that we will be changing classroom next week from D-109 to D-112. Please see the class assignment list at the front entrance of the building.
We look forward to see you all next week.
Hari Om!
