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:
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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
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.
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.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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!!
