Prayers:
* 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 - 9
Story: raavaNa carries off sItaa; a friend in need
Words of the week: dharma; adharma; puShpaka vimaana
Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'
Activity: Coloring pages of raavaNa carrying away sItaa; raavaNa chopping off jataayu's wings
Game time: Do you know your boundaries - game.
End of class:
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
It was a lot of learning and thinking today! After the initial prayers, we did the quite time, doing raama japa in our minds, thinking of his calm composure and pleasant demeanor.
Before doing the gIta chanting, as promised, Rashmi aunty brought a picture of the 'viShvarUpa' of Lord kriShNa. We are learning chapter 11 where bhagawan shows his 'viraat swarUpa' to arjuna. Seeing the picture of the 'viShvarUpa' helped us visualize what were were speaking of. We have been practicing well. Keep it up everyone!
In today's story, we saw how when sItaa aspired to have the golden deer for her pet, raama went after it, instructing lakShmaNa to keep an eye on sItaa at all times. The deer led him deep into the forest. Then raama decided to shoot the deer with his arrow. The strangest thing happened then. The deer turned into its true form maarIcha. He then impersonating raama's voice, cried out to lakShmaNa and sItaa as if he were in trouble! Surprised, raama rushed back to their 'parNa kutIra'. But alas! There was no sight of lakShmaNa or sItaa!!
When they had heard the cries of maarIcha, sItaa had got very concerned. She urged lakShmaNa, against his will, to go after raama. He had drawn a line with his arrow, around the ashram, asking her NOT to cross the line. When he was gone, raavaNa had come disguised as a hermit, asking for alms. An unwitting sItaa had stepped out of the line to offer him food. He then had seized her on to his 'puShpaka', the aerial chariot and headed south. She had tried desperately to escape from his clutches to no avail.
On hearing the cries of sItaa, the old king of birds jaTaayu (an eagle) had bravely tried to stop evil intentions of raavaNa. But he brutally chopped off the wings of jaTaayu. sItaa had no one to cry for help.... She was in raavaNa's clutches who took her to lankaa. He asked her to marry him, but sItaa would not budge from her dharma.
After coloring tasks, we played a new game called 'Do you know your boundaries?' The task was, aunty would say a particular scenario. Everyone was required to respond according to what they thought, if the scenario was within acceptable boundaries of behavior or not. If it was, they had to stand on the carpet. If it was an immoral or un-acceptable behavior, they had to show it by standing out of the boundaries of the carpet. Our kids sure knew their boundaries! Parents, do ask them what moral values we have been discussing in class and what aspect impressed them most.
We then would up the class with our ending prayers. See you all next Sunday. Stay warm everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
* 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 - 9
Story: raavaNa carries off sItaa; a friend in need
Words of the week: dharma; adharma; puShpaka vimaana
Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'
Activity: Coloring pages of raavaNa carrying away sItaa; raavaNa chopping off jataayu's wings
Game time: Do you know your boundaries - game.
End of class:
- ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
It was a lot of learning and thinking today! After the initial prayers, we did the quite time, doing raama japa in our minds, thinking of his calm composure and pleasant demeanor.
Before doing the gIta chanting, as promised, Rashmi aunty brought a picture of the 'viShvarUpa' of Lord kriShNa. We are learning chapter 11 where bhagawan shows his 'viraat swarUpa' to arjuna. Seeing the picture of the 'viShvarUpa' helped us visualize what were were speaking of. We have been practicing well. Keep it up everyone!
In today's story, we saw how when sItaa aspired to have the golden deer for her pet, raama went after it, instructing lakShmaNa to keep an eye on sItaa at all times. The deer led him deep into the forest. Then raama decided to shoot the deer with his arrow. The strangest thing happened then. The deer turned into its true form maarIcha. He then impersonating raama's voice, cried out to lakShmaNa and sItaa as if he were in trouble! Surprised, raama rushed back to their 'parNa kutIra'. But alas! There was no sight of lakShmaNa or sItaa!!
When they had heard the cries of maarIcha, sItaa had got very concerned. She urged lakShmaNa, against his will, to go after raama. He had drawn a line with his arrow, around the ashram, asking her NOT to cross the line. When he was gone, raavaNa had come disguised as a hermit, asking for alms. An unwitting sItaa had stepped out of the line to offer him food. He then had seized her on to his 'puShpaka', the aerial chariot and headed south. She had tried desperately to escape from his clutches to no avail.
On hearing the cries of sItaa, the old king of birds jaTaayu (an eagle) had bravely tried to stop evil intentions of raavaNa. But he brutally chopped off the wings of jaTaayu. sItaa had no one to cry for help.... She was in raavaNa's clutches who took her to lankaa. He asked her to marry him, but sItaa would not budge from her dharma.
After coloring tasks, we played a new game called 'Do you know your boundaries?' The task was, aunty would say a particular scenario. Everyone was required to respond according to what they thought, if the scenario was within acceptable boundaries of behavior or not. If it was, they had to stand on the carpet. If it was an immoral or un-acceptable behavior, they had to show it by standing out of the boundaries of the carpet. Our kids sure knew their boundaries! Parents, do ask them what moral values we have been discussing in class and what aspect impressed them most.
We then would up the class with our ending prayers. See you all next Sunday. Stay warm everyone.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:
Today's class was fun and we started with our morning shlokas followed by 2 minute meditation. All of us did excellent and at the end of two minute we all shared how many times we all chanted Sri Rama's name. As always we practiced Geeta Chanting. We did upto 11th shloka. We had a few volunteers who recited the shlokas independently. Good job everyone. We have 4 more shlokas to learn and we will be all set to participate in the Geeta Chanting Competition.
Story time was very interesting and captivating as we all learned about the "The Golden Deer". All of us used our imagination to describe how beautiful the golden deer was and how Sita wanted to have him. We also had a discussion about how to be always careful when you find something too good to be true. You have to ask questions and think before blindly accepting something. We also heard the story of how Ravana kidnapped helpless Sita.
After the story time we had the coloring session. We all colored chapter 18 and 19th. Some of us tried to color the unfinished pages.
Before we knew, it was time for aarti and pledge and then time to go home.
Stay warm everyone and we will see you all next Sunday.
