* 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, 3, 4
Story: King janaka; raama weds sItaa
Words of the week: mithilaa; swayamvara
Activity: Coloring pages of sItaa playing with the shiva-dhanus; raama breaking the bow; paadukaa-s in mithilaa nagari; Wedding gift for raama & sItaa - surrendering all our bad habits.
Game time: 4 corners game with our limbs ;).
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:
Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
As Ruchi aunty/Meera aunty's classroom was locked, we ended up combining both the sections. Boy! did we have double fun or what!! We did all the chantings loud and clear, yet, during meditation time, it was quite as could be! Geeta chanting was with full energy as we had double the friends in class today. They are doing very good with the first 4 verses. We will certainly introduce the 5th in the next class.
In story time, we heard the part of raamaayaNa where king janaka found sItaa, while tilling the land for a yagna. We learnt that there is an element of God in each aspect around us. Even mother earth is considered a deity. We learnt a new shloka. It is a prayer to mother earth that we need to chant every morning, before even putting our feet on the ground, asking Her forgiveness for stepping on Her. It is -
समुद्रवसने देवी पर्वतस्थनमण्डले
विष्णुपत्नि नमस्तुभ्यं पादस्पर्शं क्षमस्व मे
samudravasane devI parvatasthanamaNDale
viShNupatni namastubhyaM paadasparshaM kShamasva me
We then learnt how sItaa was a wonderful, perfect princess who learnt everything taught to her. She was very attentive, obedient, gentle and kind to everyone. When she came to be of marriageable age, her father king janaka, wanted to give her to the most perfect prince that there was. In order to find that person, he set up a challenge. The person who lifted the bow of Lord shiva and strung it, would be given the hand of sItaa in marriage. Of course, there was none other than raama who could not only lift it, but He also broke the bow in half! Everyone rejoiced and started preparing for the wedding.
We all wanted to give a gift to raama for his wedding. While giving a gift, one gives what the receiver doesn't have. raama obviously has EVERYTHING! But then, he does not have any bad qualities like - telling lies, being mean, hurting others, dis-obedience, etc, does He! So, we decided to offer all our shortcomings to raama as a present. But then, we also learnt that, by giving up our bad habits to raama, it doesn't make Him bad in any which way, for, he will turn them all into good! Good habits, for us. It is a win-win situation!! After coloring the pictures, all the children wrote down a few of their own imperfections that they wanted to work on. They gave it as an offering to Lord raama and promised to work on making themselves better in those arenas. Do take a moment and ask your children what their thoughts were. Help them and give them reminders about their promise every now and then, so that they can achieve their goal.
We then played the game of 4 limbs. We had 'raama, sIta, janaka and bhUdevi' for the 4 limbs and had fun along with a good workout, matching with the names called out.
We finished the class with our ending prayers and a reminder to keep our promises about working on our weaknesses.
Have a nice weekend everyone. See you all next week!
