March 20th Class

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')
* करग्रे वसते लक्ष्मीः - karagre vasate lakShmIH 
* समुद्रवसने देवी - samudravasane devI
* शुभं करोति कल्यणम् - shubhaM karoti kalyaNam 
* बुद्दिर्बलम् - buddirbalaM


Meditation: 1 minute 

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shlokas 1 to 14

Story: Ravana rejects good counsel; Bridge across the ocean

Words of the week: vibhIShaNa; raavaNa; indrajit; maNDodarI

Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'

Activity: Coloring pages of vibhIShaNa advising raavaNa; monkeys building the bridge across the ocean

Game time: 'Know your boundaries' game, along with applying the morals learnt in the story today.

End of class:

• ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.

Comments: 
Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
Today was almost a full class, but yet, what a quite, wonderful and attentive group!  We started off with our morning prayers, which we almost need no help.  We had learnt a new hanumaan shloka last week, we practiced it today as well.  Meditation time was the quietest!  That was a great way to start our gItaa chanting.  The first 6 verses, aunty did not even have to say with the kids!  They did it on their own!  Please keep practicing regularly and come April 23rd, each one will be able to perform their best.  Parents make sure you register them online (you can use the link above) and encourage them to practice everyday.

During story time, we saw how raavaNa, inspite of good counsel from his very brother vibhIShaNa and wife maNDodarI, heeds to his aasurI ministers and friends, who egg him towards his misdeeds.  They remind him of his previous victories over kubera, how he had snatched the pushpaka vimaana (the aerial chariot) and the city of gold, the very lankaa from kubera.  That boosted his confidence and he was not ready to receive anything other than his praises.  We learnt how company can either lead us towards betterment or spiral us down.

On the other side, all the monkeys from the south had reached kiShkindaa.  They were all celebrating their success.  hanumaan was calm and collected.  On jaambavaan's instigation, he quietly started off 'On seeing sItaa...'  He was so watchful of raama's feelings that, he did not want him to get anxious giving unwanted details or bragging about his own endeavors.  We learnt how the humble never blow their own horns and trumpets.

vibhIShaNa, left raavaNa's court, with 4 of his faithful friends and flew towards raama's camp on the other side of the ocean.  Since he was a raakshasa too, he had magical powers as well.  On seeing him, all the monkeys, etc, got anxious and concluded that he was an enemy.  But raama was calm and composed.  Seeing this, vibhIShaNa announced to the onlookers that he had left raavaNa and had come to join them as a friend.  raama asked hanumaan for his opinion on vibhIShaNa.  Only after asking, did hanumaan express his opinion.  He said vibhIShaNa had an honest face and he was announcing that he was seeking friendship.  He should not be punished just for the fact that he was raavaNa's brother.  raama agreed with hanumaan's opinion.  vibhIShaNa explained the situation and how raavaNa had rejected his counsel.  raama performed a simple 'pattabhiSheka' of vibhIShaNa as the future king of lankaa!

They then took up the task of building the bridge across the ocean to reach lankaa.  raama performed a pooja, asking the ocean for help.  After 3 days, when nothing happened, he took up his bow and arrow to dry up the whole ocean, when the ocean God appeared and pleaded raama for mercy.  He said that his very nature is to be deep and flowing always.  He couldn't possibly dry up and pave way for them.  But he promised that if a monkey named nala in their army, an excellent engineer, built a bridge, he would hold up all the rocks and boulders and trees, so that they don't sink.  Now all the monkeys started throwing huge trees and boulders into the ocean, chanting raama's name.  We also heard about the little squirrel, who was watching all this.  He was a tiny squirrel alright.  But he wanted to do his share in building the bridge.  He brought whatever little his little hands could hold and threw it into the ocean saying raama's name!  On seeing that raama blessed him and they say that the 3 lines on a squirrel's back are raama's finger marks!!  With this, we learnt that our contribution is very important, in whatever capacity.  Even at home, whatever we can do to help our parents, we need to do it!  It matters a lot to our parents too.  The bridge was built in 5 days and they all crossed over to the other side.

We stopped the story at that and did our coloring pages and played the game of boundaries, applying the morals learnt from the story today. 

See you all next week.
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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:

Today was a relatively quiet day because of low attendance.I guess everyone was busy playing Holi or watching World Cup Cricket! Happy Holi to all of you who celebrate the festival. May the colors brighten your life.. Anyways we all assembled and started with our regular routine of morning shlokas,meditation and geeta chanting. As always we are doing awesome in all three.

The story time covered lessons 30 (Ravana Rejects Good Counsel) and lesson 31 (The Bridge Across The Ocean). We learned that truly great never push themselves forward and praise their own exploits. Also Ravana's ruin was certain because when a man has lost his reason and is advised by fools around him,his ruin is certain. Ravana had become proud and his ministers too were asuric rakshas who had taken to evil ways. The evil can give the evil nothing but evil counsel which can bring only ruin. We had a lively discussion about the possible ways to cross the large ocean. Kids had a very creative ideas about how the vanara sena could cross the ocean. I found some of them very interesting like Hanuman could take all the vanaras up in the sky towards the clouds and then the whole army could walk on the cloud to reach Lanka. Other suggestion was that Hanuman could elongate his tail and everyone could walk on it and cross the ocean.

We all also took a march along the classroom chanting Sri Rama's name and each child got to lead the chanting once. We all imagined that we had reached the sea shore and we had to plan the next step in reaching Lanka.

Everyone colored in their coloring books and we all ended the class with aarti and pledge. We are going to select one or two kids to lead the pledge. So let us practice the pledge and be confident when we are asked to lead.

Our next class is going to be held on 3rd April. Have a good week and see you soon!!!

March 13th Class

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')
* करग्रे वसते लक्ष्मीः - karagre vasate lakShmIH 
* समुद्रवसने देवी - samudravasane devI
* शुभं करोति कल्यणम् - shubhaM karoti kalyaNam 
* बुद्दिर्बलम् - buddirbalaM

Meditation: 1 minute

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1, 2

Story: Lanka; Fire, fire, fire!

Words of the week: jambumaalI; aksha; indrajit; vibhIshaNa

Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'

Activity: Coloring pages of sIta in ashokavanam; hanumaan setting fire to lanka with his tail

Game time: None - we had to catch up on our coloring pages as well as the story time was elaborate :)

End of class:

• ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.

Comments:

Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
We had a slow beginning, probably due daylight savings time beginning today.  But then, the kids started trickling in one by one.  We did our prayers and revisited our reasons for saying particular prayers.  Meditation time was observed with pin drop silence!  Gita chanting is coming along well.  Parents, a link to register the kids for the competition is given in the announcements section.  Please make sure you register your children at the earliest.  All of them are doing very well.  They are all comfortable with the first 8 already.  There is still a month's time to perfect 6 more.  We are required to learn 14 shlokas from chapter 11.  Your children will give you more details about the ice-cream/pizza party for the class with maximum participants, etc. :). 

In the story time, we continued to hear about hanumaan's endeavors.  After setting his foot on the land of lankaa, he faces lankiNI, the demon who guarded the palatial gates.  On suffering a blow from hanumaan, she realized that, as per forecast, lankaa's end was close.  She bowed to Him and let Him pass.  He searched in every nook and cranny of the city, in every chamber of the palace.  There was no sight of sItaa.  For all given purposes, he had never seen sItaa so far.  But he had a picture of her in mind, as per the description he had heard.  When sitting atop a wall, he saw a beautiful garden with flowering plants and ashoka trees.  He found a beautiful maiden dressed in simple robes, her hair undone, with stains of tears on her cheeks.  He knew that she was sItaa for sure!  raavaNa came there and started to harass sitaa to marry him.  But sItaa would not even look at him.  She put a blade of grass and address raavaNa as equal to that!  All the demons harassed her further, but one demon named trijaataa comforted her and sent away all the mean ones.  When sItaa was alone, hanumaan, who was in the form of a cute little monkey atop the ashoka tree, started singing praises of raama, melodiously and also about how raama was longing for sItaa and looking for her desperately.  sItaa was amazed by looking at the little monkey.  She first thought it was a trick by raavaNa.  But after seeing raama's signature ring, she was overcome with love for her beloved.  She blessed hanumaan and gave him her crest jewel, chUDaamaNi, as a sign to show raama. 

After that, hanumaan, wanting to meet raavaNa and give him and earful, grew huge in size.  He trampled the gardens and pulled out the trees to draw attention.  When raavaNa sent jambumaali, a powerful demon, hanumaan, mashed him up to pieces.  raavaNa then sent his son akSha, who met his end as well.  A devastated raavaNa sent his son indrajit to capture hanumaan.  hanumaan pretended to yield for his 'brahmaastra', a powerful weapon.  When taken to raavaNa, he advised raavaNa to return sItaa.  In a fit of anger, he wanted to kill hanumaan.  But his brother vibhIShaNa, who was more sensible, advised raavaNa that a messenger should never be killed.  So, raavaNa wanted to punish hanumaan.  He ordered his tail to be set on fire.  hanumaan's tail kept growing and growing.  Finally, when they got tired, wrapping oiled rags on the tail, they set it on fire.  But fire did no harm to him.  He jumped from roof to building, from palace to house and set everything on fire!  Then, he dipped his tail in the ocean, went to visit sItaa to make sure she was fine, took her blessings and leapt back across the ocean, to his monkey friends.  More story in the next class :).

Did our coloring pages after that.  There was no time for any activity today as we had a lot of discussions during the story time :).  Ask you children to give you more details!  Keep practicing the gItaa.  See you all next week.

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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:

Today was a quiet day probably because daylight savings began. There were only ten students in class. As usual we began our class with a couple of breathing exercises followed by three Oms and shlokas. We all chanted loud and clear. Meditation time came next. We all sat silently for two minutes counting Sri Rama's name. A couple of kids suggested to drop marbles at the end of two minutes instead of counting Sri Rama's name for two minutes but some of us understood that counting for whole two minutes takes more concentration than counting marbles at the end of two minutes. Please ask your kids about the difference in the meditation technique used in the beginning of the year and now. Geeta chanting came next. All of us are practicing and getting ready for the competition. We all need to practice more at home to get better. 

Story time covered the topic of  Sri Hanuman reaching Lanka and meeting Sita. It was really fun describing how beautiful Lanka was and how mighty Ravana was and how Hanuman was so happy to finally meet Sita. We all learned about Hanuman's strengths and intelligence.He was wise among wisest because he never underestimated any situation; never over estimated himself; was always humble. We also did chapter 29 of the book where Hanuman destroys Lanka with his burning tail. Hanuman Ji did not even feel the heat of the fire on his tail. We learned that even the elements themselves do not trouble one who is engaged in service of Rama. 

After story time, we played a game of obstacles. All the kids stood in one corner and were asked to cross all the hurdles and sit on the beanbag at the end of the classroom, being timed. The kids who could cross the hurdles and sit on the chair on time were Hanumans. We had four Hanumans today.The game was played just to signify Hanuman's triumph against all the obstacles.  

The final activity in class was coloring. We colored chapter twenty-eight and twenty-nine. It's really interesting to see how kids color different characters in different colors.For example many kids colored the rakshasis black and Sita golden and Hanuman red etc. Many of us did a good job in likhit japa. It is delightful to see how sincere these kids are writing Sri Rama's name so many times. 

The class ended in the auditorium with ninth grade performance. Aarti and pledge were done in the auditorium as well.

March 6th Class

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')
* करग्रे वसते लक्ष्मीः - karagre vasate lakShmIH 
* समुद्रवसने देवी - samudravasane devI
* शुभं करोति कल्यणम् - shubhaM karoti kalyaNam 

Meditation: 1 minute 

Geeta Chanting: Chapter 11, shloka 1 - 14

Story: The search begins; Flight across the ocean

Words of the week: hanumaan; raama mudra ungura; mainaaka parvatam; surasaa

Likhita japa: Practice writing 'राम'

Activity: Coloring pages of monkeys; hanumaan taking off

Game time: 'Dare to enter' - with ball and hoola hoop, depicting surasaa's mouth and hanumaan :).

End of class:

• ॐ पूर्णमदः - Om poornamadaH.

Comments:

Rashmi aunty and Kusuma aunty:
Today, after our regular prayers, we practiced all the 14 shlokas of the Gita. Lot of them are comfortable with the pronunciation now!  Just a little practice will tip us over to the top! Meditation time was just awesome.  It was pin drop silence and what calmness prevailed through out the class today!

In the story segment, we heard the story of how sugrIva was intoxicated and did not keep his word to raama.  He got an awakening from lakShmana and came to his senses.  He called an assembly of monkeys from all over the place.  They were divided into 4 groups, to go in 4 different directions.  At that time, raama had a strong feeling that it would be hanumaan who would bring some good news.  He warmly hugged him and sealed a bond of eternal friendship to hanumaan.  He also gave him the ring with his seal on it, so that sItaa would recognize hanumaan as his messenger. His group, along with nala, neela, angada, jambavaan the bear, went southwards.  When they reach the tip of the land and were facing the ocean, they were anxious about their next steps and discussing the scenario or how raavaNa had grabbed sIta, jataayu had died a courageous death and raama was in sheer pain of losing sItaa.  On hearing this, sampaati, an old eagle, spoke to them.  He inquired about jataayu anxiously, for he was his older brother.  He was very sad on hearing about his death.  He then narrated how he had seen a demon taken a helpless lady toward to south.  With his keen eyes, he could see that sItaa was held captive in lankaa, amidst hideous looking raakShasI-s.  Everyone was anxious and jaambavaan egged a humble hanumaan to take up the task.  Hanumaan grew tremendously in size and teed off by kicking his feet off the mahendra parvatam (mountain).  En-route his flight, mainaaka parvata (mountain), came out of the ocean and asked hanumaan to take rest.  But he would not waver.  His undeterred focus would not let him take the slightest break.  Further on, he met surasaa, a demon, who said that anything passing by had to enter her mouth!  Smart hanumaan grew sooo huge in size that she kept opening her mouth wider and wider.  He suddenly grew small like a speck of dust, quickly entered and mouth and back out again!!  surasaa was impressed with hanumaan and showed her true form.  She was only testing his wit and strength.  After warding numerous other obstacles on the way, he finally planted his feet on the land of lanka.  He shrunk himself to a really small size, to avoid any unnecessary attention from the demons of lanka.  We have stopped the story right here at a very interesting juncture. 

After coloring the respective pages, we played a fun, fun game.  A hoola hoop was held up like surasaa's mouth.  A little ball was depicting hanumaan.  Each one had to stand far away and try to send the hanumaan through surasaa's mouth, meaning, the ball through the hoop :).  Each one who did that was declared 'hanumaan'!  Guess what, pretty much everyone in the class qualified!!  We had to disperse, with our ending prayers. 

See you all next week. 
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Ruchi aunty and Meera aunty:

Today was yet another fun filled balavihar class. After settling down and keeping our bags and jackets properly we all started with three loud Om's to make us more alert and focused followed by morning prayer/shlokas. Meditation was next in our agenda which we all did very well. For two minutes whole class sat silently chanting Lord Rama's name and counting the number of times the sacred name was chanted. Most of us got our numbers right. This means that we are more focused and attentive during this important segment of our routine. Good Job everyone.

 

We are now practicing all the fourteen shlokas of the Bhagwat Geeta chapter 11. For the rest of the weeks until the competition, we will keep practicing in the class. Please register your children. For more information please ask any of the 1st grade sevikas. Please encourage your children to chant at home.

 

The story of Ramayana has taken a interesting turn where all the vanaras gather together and search for Sita. The search begins in all the directions- north, south,east and west. The vanaras that went in north,south and east directions come back. But the team headed south could actually find the clue that Sita is alive and is in Lanka. Hanuman remembers his hidden power and becomes big and mighty and takes a flight across the ocean to see Sita. On his way he meets many obstacles but he overcomes them. One of the rakshasi Sursa wants to eat him but he becomes really tiny and flies through her mouth. We all enjoyed the story very much and had a discussion about how the ocean could be crossed in those days. Many students suggested that if there was underwater diving available at that time or ship, submarines or airplanes ,it would have been so easy to cross the ocean. We all want to know what is going to happen next. Can't wait for next weekend!!

 

We played a game today. We used hoola- hoop and pretended that it was Sursa's big mouth and we used a ball to pretend that Hanumanji was entering her mouth and coming out if the ball crossed the hoop. We all took turns. The child who could put the ball in the hoop without touching the sides was Hanuman. So today in our class we had 8 Hanumans. Every body had lots of fun playing this game.

 

Coloring segment and Likhita japa segment was next and we all tried to finish the pages that were not colored in the previous class. Everyone enjoyed coloring the monkeys in the book. Many of us did a great job writing Rama's name in our notebooks.

 

The class ended with aarti and pledge and today some of the students led the pledge. We will pick a couple of students each time to lead us all in aarti and pledge.

 

We all had fun today!! See you all next week. Until then, take care and have a good week!!

 

Hari Om!!