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:
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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')
* 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.
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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.
