Next Class: October 9, 2011
Sevikas: Jayashree, Shubangi
Announcements
On Oct 23, is the CORD walkathon. We will be having the class in Mercer County Park that day followed by the walkathon. Each class is in a separate team and the goal for our team is $1000/-. Please help us achieve that by registering yourself and your children to walk at cord.dojiggy.com. It will be a good opportunity to teach our children the values Seva and Charity. Let's show the children what Unity can achieve - how small droplets can become a big ocean.
This year, they have a smaller trail for families with little children. Remember, the class that raises the most gets to have an icecream and pizza party!
September Class Schedule
Prayers
AUM Chanting
Sahanavavathu
Vakratunda Mahakaya
Saraswathi Namasthubhyam
Gurur Brahma
Brahmarpanam
Ekadantam Mahakayam
Bhajans
Great God Ganapathy
Come Here My Dear Krishna Kanhaiya
Geeta Chanting: Chapter XII first shloka.
Story Time and Letter(s) of the day: 'A' for Aspiration
Ganesha goes to a party
Who is God, Where is He, What does He do
Dronacharya and the archery test
Activity: Clay Ganesha
Spotting the ladybug
Reaching the balloon
Comments:
We have had a pretty good start to the year so far. We had combined classes the first couple of weeks. There were a couple of children who were crying but otherwise the rest of them were pretty comfortable. Since many of them have attended PreK or even toddler class in Balavihar they remembered the routine very well. To make sure that they have not forgotten what they learnt last year, we started off with the same set of Shlokas and slowly adding one new Shloka at a time. This month we started Ekadantam Mahakaayam.
This class is pretty interactive. All of them responded to questions very well. We came up with rules to follow in Balavihar. First week, we did the story of Ganesha going to a party at Kubera's palace and still hungry after eating and starts to eat up the palace too. Ask them what and how we should feed Ganesha to make Him full. Second week, we asked the questions, Who is God, Where is He and What does He do and answered with a story. The prince in the story asks these questions and finally the minister's cook answers them. Ask your children if they remember the answers to these. (God is the one who can make a brown cow eat green grass and give white milk, He is everywhere like the light from a candle, and He is the one who can put the cook on the throne and the King on the ground and the minister on his knees). Then we discussed, why if God is everywhere, we are not able to see Him all the time. For this we did the ladybug activity. To spot the ladybug in the picture, they had to use a magnifying glass. Similarly to see God, we need a sweet mind. And to get a sweet mind, we need to learn and practice the values that we find on the alphabet safari this year.
The last week, we started on the alphabet safari with A is for aspiration. We talked about how goals should be - not too high nor too low (balloon activity). We talked about Arjuna's aspiration to become the best archer in the world and Dronacharya's test for all his students and how only Arjuna of all the students had his eyes on the target and nothing else. We asked the children to draw their aspiration ( we didn't realize just how popular a snow shoveler is!!! :-))) . We talked a little about Martin Luther King Jr who aspired for equality for all people. Many of them already knew the story.
Each day after the initial prayers, we do the Bhajans. This year we are reviewing Great God Ganapathy from last year and then learnt a new one, Come Here My Dear Krishna Kanhaiya. Both are with actions. Please ask your children to show you.
This year the children have to learn the first 8 verses of Chapter 12, Bhakti Yoga for the Geeta competition. We started practicing the first Shloka in class. The sanskrit and English scripts are given in the parent handbook.
Closing Prayers
Arthi - Jaya Jagadeesha Hare
Asathoma
Purnamadah...
Pledge
Reminders
Please register for the CORD walkathon at bit.ly/cordwalk
Please take the children to the restroom before the class.
Please do not send in any bags or folders with them.
If you have any spare art supplies please donate them to the class.
