* 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')
* समुद्रवसने देवी - samudravasane devI
Meditation: 1 minute
Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
Story: To the forest
Words of the week: sumantra; guha; dharma
Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'
Activity: Coloring page of guha washing the feet of raama, who is off to the forest accompanied by sItaa and lakShmaNa
Game time: raama ball game
End of class:
- ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.
Comments:
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
Do we have good listeners or what! Last class, we spoke about being organized. It not keeps the place clean, but our minds too. A cluttered place makes our minds chaotic as well. We spoke about keeping all the shoes in line when we enter the class so that we are not tripping over them. Today, almost everyone remember and lined up their shoes neatly!! Three cheers to our good listeners.
After our morning prayers and quite time, we did geeta chanting. It is going well. We can see that practice at home has been paying off! Please continue the good work.
We did a recap of the story so far. The kids sure remembered even the minutest details! We then listened to how kaikeyi was adamant about her wishes. She had let manthara's words spoil her head. From this we learnt that it is not a good idea to 'borrow someone's brain', just as we wouldn't borrow someone's nose to smell or someone's teeth to eat ;). The whole city was grief stricken. raama was calm as ever. His brother lakShmaNa is enraged but raama calms him down. sItaa says that she will accompany him everywhere and gets ready to leave to the forest. lakShmaNa does not give raama any choice. He gets ready to leave as well. They take the blessings of their parents and leave a lamenting dasharatha behind. The whole city follows them, but raama turns them back gently. The minister sumantra escorts them to the end of the city on the chariot. They meet guha, the tribal king, on the banks of river gangaa. He offers them to stay back with him for the 14 years comfortably, but raama turns him down too. We learnt from his action, that he did not cheat. His word was that he would retire to the forest for the duration and he wouldn't by sly to take the easy way out! We also learnt that he respected the word of his father and would go to any extent to keep dharma.
Coloring was fun. Then we played the raama ball game. Every time the receiver had to say raama before catching. If not, the player would be out. Guess what, no one was out! They all remembered. The lesson we learnt from the game was that, just as we said raama before getting the ball, we need to remember Him for everything we receive, everyday! He gives us so many things and we need to receive it with gratitude, remembering Him every time!
We dispersed after our ending prayers. Have a nice long weekend everyone. See you all on Dec 5th.
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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
Today we had yet another fun filled learning day. We Started with our morning shlokas and then did meditation. Today we all sat silently for two whole minutes. Wow that was AMAZING!! Good job everyone. We were so quiet that a parent who was looking for our class thought that our classroom has changed since there was no noise coming out of our class!! Now that is a job well done. There was a discussion about what happens during meditation and some of us shared our thoughts that God talks to us during this time and how some of us could picture Lord Rama in our minds.
We did very good in Geeta Chanting time and learned 5th shloka today. Please keep practicing at home. Since we all were a little tired sitting down we did some stretching and then sang a Bhajan. Since everyone loves to sing “subramanyam subramanyam” , we all sang loud and clapped with full enthusiasm. Story time was all about Lord Rama leaving for Forest to spend 14 years of exile. We learned that Rama accepted to go to the forest because it was his foremost duty to obey his father. We also recapped the story so far and asked some questions about the story.
After the story we all played the game “ Rama Ball”. Rama nama can be fun. We all stood in a big circle and played catch with a soft toy. Whoever caught the toy would say Rama. The child who did not say Rama was out of the game. But guess what no one forgot to say Rama! So no one was out of the game. All of us won.
We colored chapter 10th in our Ramayana folder and also did likhita japa. When we were ready to head out we all played Ramah Vadati and then did our closing prayer.
Enjoy your Thanksgiving holiday and we will see you all after next Sunday!
